Into that Good Night: Insurrection
by Buddyboy98
Summary: Things over at INGB, and particularly between the CEO and the Chairman are not good. Trevor and Jake have become distant almost to the point of hating each other. When Trevor makes the biggest mistake of his life, will it drive him back to his father?
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

_**2 years after the events of 'Into that Good Night' **_

Sixth Street, or as it was referred to occasionally, the Avenue of the Americas was a crucial part of the most powerful nerve center of Finance in the world. It was home, and in the past, had been home to some of the largest and most powerful companies in the world. Now it was going to be home to the most valuable company in the world and it was going to be home to International and National General Broadcasting in a mammoth way. It was unprecedented and to some it was a flaunting of their position, but to others, it was something to respect immensely.

After two years of lobbying the very bureaucratic City of New York and $10.7 Billion Dollars spent in costs, INGB now controlled the entire avenue that ran through the Financial District. From all across the United States, the Company had moved all of its Headquarter Functions to that avenue and now roughly a quarter of all of its employees were now working in the avenue. It still had tens of thousands worldwide, but it was primarily controlled on the street. The dozens of skyscrapers that were on that avenue were now emblazoned with the INGB Logo, the sight was brilliant.

The Central Skyscraper, which would house both the CEO and the Board of Directors, was surrounded by crowds and photographers. In front of the entrance of the building, a red ribbon was tied in front of the doors and all that needed doing was for the ribbon to be cut, "I still don't agree with this Trevor, $10 Billion Dollars to buy this entire street."

"Fortune favors the bold," Trevor said through his smile for the photographers.

Jake had that same expression, he was forcing a smile and clapping as Trevor was, "It doesn't favor the stupid."

"You always wanted to do this," The younger man reminded him, "You're just jealous that I did it first."

Jake would have frowned if it were not for the cameras, "If it were not for me, you wouldn't be here, or alive."

"If I could fire you I would," Trevor gritted his smile.

This time Jake smirked, "But rest assured Trevor, I can remove you as CEO with a simple majority vote."

"You wouldn't do that," Trevor said, he was starting to get angry about it now.

For over twenty years, Jake had a slobbering love affair with the Media and he was sure that they wouldn't count it against him if he showed his child up. It had been two years since he had stepped down as CEO of INGB and took on the full duties as Chairman of the Board. He hadn't told Trevor this, but he had kept the option of removing Trevor from the position in the back of his mind for two whole years. Jake told himself that he was only going to consider it if Trevor did something manically stupid, and this was one of those moments, truth be told, he wasn't bluffing at all.

In these past two years, Jake and Trevor's relationship had been getting tenser and tenser with every decision that he had made that Jake didn't agree with. They had gotten so distant that the only times that they really ever socialized was at work. Jake could have sworn that his son looked at him with hate, but Jake knew that Trevor didn't understand his motives. He was looking out for both Trevor and this company. He thought that Trevor wasn't up to this task, and the decisions that he made were ultimately going to doom INGB, "Son, I do not bluff, I do not bluff about anything."

"You'd never get a majority vote," Trevor told him with a visible scowl.

Jake chuckled, "I already have one, and I have the document drafted, I've had it drafted for two years."

"If you wanted me gone so bad, why didn't you submit it?" Trevor demanded tensely.

"Because I thought that you'd clean up your act," Jake said, "I gave you your chance, you blew it."

Trevor shook his head, "So this is it, you're finally going to screw me over."

"You were never ready for this Trevor," Jake said, "And I'm not screwing you over, I'm helping you and INGB."

He would be dignified in being screwed over, he would hold his head up high and wade through the crap that his father had unleashed on him, "If that's what you want Dad, I'll step down, but I'll resign on my own, in fact this morning."

"Good," Jake said, "I have some contacts from Goldman Sachs that would be more than happy to hire you on."

Trevor scowled and shook his head, "No thanks Dad, I'm going to do this on my own."

"Fine," Jake said and motioned to the door, "Now go cut that ribbon, turn in your papers."

"What about you? Planning to take the reins again?" Trevor questioned bitterly.

He had intended on it, honestly he didn't want it, but until he could find someone who could properly take his role on properly. When he had rocketed Trevor to the top of the company, he assumed that with Trevor's education and with his inherit abilities, he would fit the mold, but there was that part of him that knew Trevor could never do it and today that part of him won, "Mom is going to eat you alive for doing this, you know that Dad, she is going to fillet you."

"I can handle your mother," Jake told him, "Now get over there and cut that ribbon and resign."

**OOOOO**

As much as it was a colossal risk to purchase $10 Billion in Real Estate and how risky it was to maintain it all, Jake admitted to himself that it was a magnificent sight. He had considered doing this once before, but his sense of doom that came with the thought of doing it was the only thing that had stopped him. Jake couldn't reverse this, the deal was in place, the buildings were already renovated and the staff had already moved in, these buildings were his now.

"Why did Trevor do this?" Maxwell Stoops asked, they had just received Trevor's letter of resignation.

Jake leaned back in his chair, "I told him that I was going to remove him, he decided to step down with dignity."

"You told him that you were going to remove him?" Maxwell exclaimed, he stood up from his end of the table.

The Board Room was empty, and the only people in there were Maxwell and Jake. They had been following up on business and this was the hottest topic on their annual discussion, "You were there when we discussed buying real estate on this street, the prices were astronomical back then. Back then, it cost $6 Billion Dollars, and another $1 Billion in permits, lobbyists, furniture, office supplies, hell carpeting for the office spaces. And at the time, it was projected to cost $3 Billion every year to maintain with the sheer amount of people and things on this entire street."

"I pushed for this Jake," Maxwell said, "I said that he'd have my support Jake, and as I recall, you didn't object."

Jake looked up, "If remember correctly, I didn't vote, I voted present, not a yes or no, I didn't like it then."

"This was a good move Jake," Maxwell reassured him.

"It was not a good move," Jake slammed his fist against the conference room table, "I would have been far more inclined to do this way back then to do this now. I thought that Trevor would be able to do it, be he wasn't, he's much better off going to a company were his many talents will be put to good use, but here, they fall a little short."

Maxwell shook his head, "You self-righteous son of a bitch, we both know why you did this, you want to get back in."

"For your information," Jake turned to him and glared, "I had this drafted two days after he took over, I had it in my desk drawer in the eventuality that he'd try to do something stupid. And after this, he's really done something stupid."

"He sold the old office building for $500 Million Dollars, in this Economy," Maxwell maintained, "And he used it to help pay for this."

Jake shook his head in incredulity, "Lip stick on a pig, LIP STICK ON A GODDAMN PIG! $10 Billion Dollars, $500 Million Dollars, a fraction of that number, it's barely a fraction. Now Maxwell, you've been with me for twenty five years, are going to finally leave after all this?"

Together, they had weathered so many storms. They had built an empire with their efforts, and somehow, Jake felt that it was all coming down to this, "You tried to reassert your authority over an inexperienced kid that you put in charge of the most powerful and valuable company in the world, personally, I thought it was a risk putting Trevor at the top, but you didn't object and I saw no reason to after that. If you come back, I will fully support you and I will fall back into my old role, because frankly I miss it, but I think that what you did to your son is very lousy. It will take me a little while to get that respect for you that I had back, but I'll come back full time if you return as CEO."

Jake looked at him, "That's all that I ask."

"Oh and by the way," Maxwell said, reaching for the pop-up note dispenser, pulled a sticky note out and wrote something down on it, "This is the address for the Investment Firm that he was going to apply for."

Maxwell stood up and walked around to Jake's side of the table and handed it to him, "He told me that's where he was going and that he didn't want you pulling the strings, but I suggest that you do."

Jake looked down at what Max had written on the note, and Jake smiled. That was where his son needed to be, he knew this firm and it was the right place for Trevor. Marcus and Associates was one of the most prosperous Investments firms in the world and DJ would do great things there. He had a strong acumen for Stocks when he was ten years old. Looking up, he saw that Maxwell had left the room, maybe he'd take Maxwell up on his suggest. He lean forward and grabbed the phone that was in front of him, he knew the number to the investment firm by heart. Dialing in the number, he held the phone up to his ear as he was connected, "Marcus and Associates Investment."

"Hi," Jake said as he looked down at the note, "This is Jacob Long over at International and National General Broadcasting Incorporated, can I speak with Mr. Marcus?"

The Secretary seemed pleasant, "Of course, I'll transfer you now."

**OOOOO**

"Jake," John Marcus smiled as he pressed the speaker function on his phone and leaned up on his desk, "I heard about the big shake up, back in control of that magnificent machine you've got over there, well I'm very pleased."

"I love my son, but this wasn't his place," Jake told his longtime friend.

John looked down at the folder on his desk, "I know, I just received a fax from Trevor, telling me of his intentions of interviewing for a Senior Investment Advising Position, he also included this note to not accept any sort of shall we say _'encouragement'_ from you, but I expected your call."

"He's a bit ticked," Jake sighed with a twinge of sad laughter.

"I would be too, but I have to agree, the only person who is fit to run that company is you," John nodded, "But can you tell me a little bit about Trevor's skills, because I'm seriously considering hiring him straight to that very coveted position for his last name alone, but what are the perks."

Jake chuckled, "Well, he could pick out 110% Percent Dividend stocks when he was ten. When he was fifteen, I allowed him to start investing stocks with his savings which was about fifteen grand, by the time he was 21, he had turned that fifteen grand into a tens of millions. Stocks are his real gift."

"Hell I might make him a partner," John joked.

"I would," Jake said seriously.

"But tell me this Jake, why did you force him out?" John asked.

Jake leaned back in his chair and contemplated that, sure, he knew why, but he wanted to think about it again, and he was silent before he finally gave the other man the answer that he wanted, "When I stepped down, I knew that he wasn't up to this, and he made stupid decisions. Buying all the buildings of Sixth Street and spending billions of dollars to do all of that."

"Perhaps it was rash, but it might turn out to be for the best," John said.

"Whatever the case, I felt that I needed to come back," Jake told his friend.

He was contemplative for a moment, when he received the fax from Trevor Long, he was pleasantly surprised. He was going to hire the boy for the simple fact of his last name, but with those little facts that Jake had told him and with Jake's approval, he was going to do it, "I think I'll give him what he wants. If he's as good as you say he is, I will not be all that disappointed."

"That's good to know," Jake nodded, "He doesn't really need to work, but he likes working and I think that he's going to do great things over at your firm."

**OOOOO**

"How could you do this? How could you be so completely and utterly stupid not to mention cruel to your own son!" Rose Long screamed into her cellphone, "I mean when he called me, I saw red, now you needed to tell me what the fuck you were thinking and sound it out you miserable little prick."

Jake bit his lip and looked out the large window of his office, "When I moved Trevor into this position, I knew that he would falter. I had this motion to the Board drafted for years for this eventuality, so shut the fuck up, what would you have done? Would you have let your kids do something so stupid?"

"I wouldn't have done my own kid like that!" Rose retorted.

"In this case, the actions of my kid would have an impact on the lives of millions of people and I can't allow him to fuck up so royally," Jake insisted, he was right and Rose knew it, "Trevor will be fine, he's going to Marcus and Associates where he's going to make his clients millions and be a success."

Rose sounded defeated, "What's that, investment firm?"

"Yeah," Jake nodded and sat down at his chair, "Really important one."

**OOOOO**

It had only been a few hours, but he was ready to move on from INGB and he was going to start at Marcus and Associates. It was one of the biggest investment firms in the world, $72 Billion Dollars of Capital were controlled through that building. Trevor himself had known John Marcus since he was eleven, his father and Marcus had been friends for years. The moment that he had submitted his letter of resignation to the Board of Directors, he knew that he was going to that firm. Those things were his passion, stocks and investments.

"Trevor," John greeted him as he stepped into the office, "It's really good to see you again."

Trevor smiled and returned the man's handshake, "You too John, it's been a long time."

"It has," John nodded and sat down behind his desk, "So, CEO of my biggest client, and now you come to me."

Trevor sighed and leaned back into the chair, "I'm sure that you'll find out the details soon enough, but suffice it to say, I needed a change and I thought that I could put my skills to use here, it seemed very logical."

"You thought right," John nodded, "But there is an issue, this is your first time in an investment firm and seeing as you want to jump straight to the top without being a partner, you need certain prerequisites."

Trevor hadn't thought about that, this had just happened a few hours ago. In order to make investments, you needed a Grade-7 Investment License. To be a partner in an investment firm and make trades and sells as a partner, you needed a Grade-9. A grade seven took a minimum of two years, a nine took four years. Trevor didn't know what to do, he needed to work to keep himself sane, short of finding some sort of exam to take, the only way he saw to get right in the game was to throw a few dollars around, "A Grade-9, is there any sort of way that I can try and get the license right away, a test? Or do I have to pay off an SEC Advisor?"

"There is an exam," John nodded and looked down DJ's resume on his desk, "But it will take some time, but I have an associate who would be willing to issue you a license for a poultry fee of course. It's not illegal technically."

Trevor shook his head, "That's bribery."

"To get a license to invest stocks," John finished, "The most that you could get it is a fine, and besides with your last name, you'd never be caught."

Trevor sighed, "It's that safe then?"

John Marcus looked secretive for a moment and when he looked back to the closed door, he turned and looked Trevor in his blue eyes, "What I'm about to tell you is not to leave this room, and if it does, I'll string you up kid."

'_Imbecile…' _Trevor noted, he'd string up Marcus at the first sign of something like that, and the old man would never see it coming, "What's so important?"

"I paid this same associate $500,000 Dollars after he issued me a license when I first started," John ran his hand through his hair, "He gave me a shot because I showed an aptitude for stocks and he told me to give him his fee after I made it, because I didn't have that kind of money to start out. But you do, you're the son of the fifth richest man on the planet and you're a millionaire in your own right, just give him the money, the license and I will give you the position that you requested. I have a good feeling about you."

Trevor had to look past John and out the window in contemplation. He had never done anything like this in his life. He had always followed things by the book, and nothing illegal. Even if it was about as illegal as a parking ticket in some cases, he still had nothing on his record, "How much will it cost me to get this license and to have this never, ever heard of again."

"I'll get in touch with him and he'll be here this afternoon, but I can sure you that the minimum will be somewhere around six figures," John said, leaning forward and scribbling down something on a notecard, "Until then, we'll consider you hired, and until you can get your licenses, this is orientation. We'll keep your hiring under wraps until we can get ahold of your license."

**OOOOO**

"What do you think is going on in INGB?" The lead anchor asked.

The financial program on CNN had been analyzing the reports coming out of INGB for the past hour and none of it was making sense. It was clear to Jake that unless they had the truth straight from the horse's mouth, all they talked with was complete and total bullshit, "This internal shake up to me, signals one of two things, either their Board lost faith in Trevor Long, or someone tried to force Trevor out and bowed out not-so gracefully."

"There is the matter of Jacob Long being CEO of INGB again," One said.

"If that's a sign of desperation or-…," Jake shut off the television as Maxwell opened the door to his new office and gave him the evilest eye that he could possibly manage. For a few moments, Maxwell stood there, just glaring at him and it began to make Jake feel uncomfortable, until he squirmed.

"What the fuck is a matter?" Jake asked him loudly.

"Nothing," His face lightened up and he set down on the corner of the desk rather lightly, "I'm just enjoying screwing with you, and you should know that John Marcus just called me and let me know that they hired Trevor, though he is a little reluctant to let this all out for the next few days."

Jake nodded and looked back to the television, "That's very good, what is the position that John gave him?"

"SIA, which is a bit fishy…" John began and immediately Jake caught on to what he was saying. That little fact of keeping Trevor's hire under wraps also sent alarm bells in Jake's mind. But again, he couldn't intercede for him.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Jake asked.

"Buying off an SEC Commissioner with a pile of cash to obtain a stockbroking license won't land him in a Federal Prison, but it won't be good for his career, he will be blackballed if he's caught," Maxwell said, sitting closer on the desk, "I would suggest having the lawyers on standby, just incase."

"You think that it'll come out?" Jake asked with a raised eyebrow.

Maxwell nodded, "If the new Attorney General is serious about cleaning house, there is a distinct possibility that it will go down. Now I'm not sure if John Marcus or that firm will go down, but it will ruin his reputation and all of the associates including Trevor. And quite possibly all of its many clients."

That sent a shock through Jake, INGB was Marcus and Associates biggest investor. He looked over at Maxwell, "$28 Billion Dollars investments and holdings, what do you suggest we do, yank it all out at once?"

"No," Maxwell shook his head, "In increments, I have a contact inside the Justice Department and the SEC, when I get word that they've finally turned their sights on Marcus, we take the final amount out."

Maxwell got off of the desk and reached for a piece of paper out of Jake's printer and grabbed a pen and wrote down the amount of cash that they had invested in Marcus and Associates, $28,000,000,000 even. He looked over at Jake to make sure that he had his attention, "$10,000,000 Dollars every month and place it in other firms and different accounts, and after the guns off of Marcus and Associates we put it back, or if it kills Marcus and A-…"

"If we wipe our accounts from that firm, it will attract attention," Jake said, picking up the remote and turning on the television, "Look at them, all of the fiscal talking heads already think that there's something stirring internally here! This move will give them an almost inexhaustible amount of fodder."

Maxwell shook his head, "We can afford to be caught up in this, $28 Billion Dollars in Capital, now imagine if INGB was a person, if we lost that cash, if the Government confiscated it, it would be like cutting off our leg."

"I know that, and there is my kid to think about," Jake said quietly.

"I'll need to find some roundabout way to do this without attracting an attention," Maxwell hopped off of the desk, "If that's what you need."

Jake nodded, "That's your specialty."

When Maxwell nodded and turned to leave his office, Jake cleared his throat and called for him again. Maxwell turned, "What is it?"

"You tell Wes MacDonald over at CNN to pull this shit from the air," Jake shook his head, "If our Shareholders get a hold of his, they're going to let the crap roll down hill and if that does tell Wes, he's going to get it first."

**OOOOO**

"1.5 Million," John Marcus said, pushing forward a piece of paper with the exact account information on it, "This is an offshore account that it needs to be put into, once he has it, he'll issue the license and you're home free."

Trevor leaned forward and took the piece of paper into his hands and read the contents. He was really going to do this, he was going to bribe an SEC Commissioner to get an Investment License. His career would be completely destroyed if this ever came out and not to mention the fact that his father would more than likely butcher him if he ever found out. Taking the paper into his hands, he folded it down the side and stuck it into his jacket pocket.

"I'll go wire the funds right now," Trevor said getting up from the table.

And little did he know, his fate was sealed.

**OOOOO**

**Authors Note: Well, I have returned, so prepare for me dancing on my itty bity little soapbox: I am officially living in hotel room to hotel room for the next few months. I'm getting deeper and deeper into my new job, and I'm not sure if you follow American Presidential Elections but the campaign that I work for lost Iowa, but we won South Carolina and now we're moving on to other states. I won't be going back home for a few months, I've rented out my house and until Speaker Gingrich wins the nomination or drops out, I won't be settled down, so updates might be a little sparse depending on the Wi-Fi Connections of the various hotels that I'll be staying at. **

**Otherwise, I'm giving this well thought about sequel a chance. **


	2. Chapter 1 – Doomsday

**Chapter 1 – Doomsday**

There were a few things that one learned in this business.

Never trust the people you compete against, and only trust a hand full of people that work for you. There were only a few people in the Board Room that he trusted, three to be precise. Maxwell Stoops was one of them, Zachary Stoops, his son in-law, was the second and the clerk was the last, he didn't trust the others with anything. He respected them and the feeling was mutual, but he didn't trust them. Another thing that he had with this Board of Directors was an understanding, when he wanted something done, they did it. They understood what happened to the previous Board of Directors and the iron fist he wielded, he destroyed those former Board Members and he would destroy them if they knifed him in the back, "Thank you for coming here for the second time today, but as you've been made aware, former CEO Trevor Long has been employed with Marcus and Associates Investments."

"What is this about Jake?" Zachary asked with a bit of a smile, "You forced him out. We know that, what else was he going to do?"

Jake sighed and looked over to him, "Well, I assume that you are all aware of Investment Finance Regulations? And what it means to be a partner in an Investment Firm and invest?"

"Of course, you need a Class-9 Traders License-…" Zachary stopped as it dawned on him.

The older man looked smug, "Now, it typically takes four years for someone to be properly vetted and for the Government to approve it, now any explanations as to why he got a license in one day."

A low murmur began to go through the Board Room and Jake smiled at Maxwell, who shared his smile. Zachary, who was third most powerful executive on the Board, turned to him, "I can't believe that he would do this."

"Neither can I, but I can't interfere, it's not my company and he doesn't like it when I intercede on his behalf," Jake swept his gaze around the table, "As you all know, we have $28 Billion Dollars in Capital in the firm, and with the new Attorney General promising to clean up Corporate Corruption, I have a feeling that he's going to turn his eyes on Marcus, it's inevitable. The SEC takes bribes every single day, and the AG knows this and he's going to start there. It is only a matter of time. Now we have two issues, the first one is that $28 Billion Dollars, and the second is Trevor himself. Now, a former CEO of this company and not to mention my son is going to come under scrutiny and by extension this company. We need to prepare to remove that $28 Billion from Marcus quietly and we need to prepare for this inevitable onslaught by the Justice Department. So, care to run any options by Maxwell and myself?"

Zachary tapped his hands against the table, "Is there anything peculiar that the Justice Department will find here?"

"I don't run my business like that at all," Jake told him and then he turned to the rest of the Board and stared at the center of the table, "And by the way, if there are any peculiarities at any level of this company, I'm going to let the shit run downhill and bury the people who are responsible. Now as far as I know, there are no improprieties here, but by the time that DOJ gets here, I expect any improprieties to be corrected and everything flawless. I've made it a policy to run this company clean, and this is my one and only warning to every single employee and all levels of this company, by this time next week, I expected you to spit shine the records and leave no stone unturned and to make everything proper. Any one remotely involved will be handed over to the Department of Justice on platter, you all relay this to your departments and I'll relay this to the Chief Executive Level later on. Have I made myself very clear?"

By their silence, Jake knew they understood. There had to be some improprieties within the massive structure of the company, but he expected it to be cleaned up by the time the Federal Government arrived. Or else, true to his word, he'd let the Federal crap roll downhill. He turned from Zach and looked across the table at Maxwell, who was looking at a folder with a stunned, almost fearful expression his face. Oh he had a bad feeling about what was about to happen. Scratching his forehead, he narrowed his eyes and leaned in, "Max, you look like you just saw a ghost, there is something you're not telling us, what is it and give us the uncensored version and let the bad news flow."

"This is alarming, this is very, very alarming," Maxwell said, taking his eyes off of the folder in front of him and closing it quickly, "That account that we have at Marcus and Associates, all $28 Billion of it are the source funds for all of our Employee Benefits. Medical Insurances, Retirement Accounts, Pensions, the General 401k Plan. Jake, we have to get that money out of there, and we have to get it out now, if the Government confiscates it, we have no benefits for all our Employees and we'll have a riot on our hands."

Jake sighed, "You forgot about this?"

"I'm sorry, I'm juggling about a hundred other things right now because the former CFO left things in a jumble," Maxwell sighed and slid the folder across the folder and straight to Jake, "I can't tell you the possible risks of this, it is my recommendation, as the only person on this Board with the qualification to make this judgment, that you remove all of our ties with Marcus."

Jake sighed as Zachary looked down at his father, "You're only qualified?"

"I am kid," Maxwell said, "You've spent the last two years kissing your brother in-law's ass, all the while, he was setting this company up to involved with one of the most extensive Government probes in American History."

Zachary turned back to Jake, "I thought you authorized the Marcus account?"

"Trevor did," Jake shook his head, "I objected, but I couldn't stop him."

Zachary turned and looked at the table incredulously, "So are you telling me that Trevor just saddled us with $3 Billion in annual payments for this avenue, invested our entire 401k Fund with a crooked yet brilliant investor and now he's put himself in a position to ruin his reputation, and ours, is that right?"

"Yes," Jake nodded, a scowl was on his face, "I can hear the chants of Ponzi Schemes, and how Trevor and I were in on it. We need to distance ourselves from Marcus and Associates immediately, begin pulling that money from Marcus. At the very least, we can't allow our 401k funds to be compromised."

Maxwell nodded, "So we're throwing out secrecy?"

"Yes," Jake nodded, "I don't give a damn about the attention anymore, I won't open ourselves up to the possibility of having those funds disappear, we owe the people who work for this company far better loyalty then that."

Leaning forward, Maxwell grabbed the phone and pressed the speaker function on the phone. He quickly dialed in the number that would take him directly to John Marcus, INGB's official Board of Directors phone line had a direct connection to his office. Maxwell grabbed the piece of paper that was next to him and picked up a pen, "John, you're on the line with the INGB Board."

**OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO**

"What can I do for you ladies and gentlemen?" John leaned back in his chair with an almost jolly look on his face. He loved his biggest clients, they were special to him and their money tripled his love for INGB and its Board.

Maxwell began to write some notes to himself, "We're canceling our accounts."

The shock that went through John, caused him to shoot up from his chair, "I have to object, we're being preparing to issue some very big investments with that large chunk of money, in fact I put your son on it this morning."

"John, this is Jake Long," Jake leaned forward, "I can't allow any more investments with that money, I am aware that you don't know that the money is our general plan account for our all our Employees and we need to keep it out of danger of being lost, investment banking is not something that I need to risk with the wellbeing of 41,900 people. I do hope you understand."

John clenched his fist, it was amazing how fast relationships could turn around, "Your authority is not needed here Mr. Long, I can only do that with the authorization of your department heads. It's their money and I can assure you that they need to give you their authorization for me to move it."

"No," Jake began to get agitated, "I can assure you that all of my employees wouldn't want their money being risked. And if you are so distraught about losing this money, perhaps you'd be willing to explain to us how my son, who didn't possess a Traders License, got one in one day instead 4 years?"

He should have known better then to have let Jacob Long into his actions, the man was shark, he was the biggest badest prick in the industry and if you crossed him, you usually ended up one of three things, in jail, bankrupt or ruined. Any idiot who knew anything of finance laws, knew that the only way to get a hold of a traders license was to take an exam that would take at the least 4 years to be vetted, and there was one explanation to getting one in less than a day, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't," Jake sighed and shook his head, "Let me just say, if I decided to blab to the Justice Department that _someone_ inside your company decided to bribe a SEC License Commissioner so that he'd grant said licenses to your traders, how would you react to that bit of news?"

Sighing, John leaned against the counter with his hand buried in his hands, he had been caught, "I don't have the money, Jake, I don't have it!"

"Dear Lord," Jake sighed and leaned back into his chair, "I swear to god John, if you don't tell me were that money is, I'm going to use everything I have at my disposal, both personal and professional to pick you apart."

That was not an idle threat, when Jake Long threatened to tear you apart, piece by piece, he meant it, "It's gone, I gambled it away on a merger that failed and there isn't a dime left, I've been dreading this moment, and I've been trying to piece together a solution to get you you're money back."

"You have two weeks, to get everything back, all $28 Billion Dollars, I don't care if you have to sell your car," Jake told him, he was now standing up and the emotion that propelled him was pure anger, "$28 Billon Dollars, I want every penny back in the root account in 14 Days, or I will tear that firm apart and take everything that I can get, you won't stop me from that."

"I'd have to sell the firm to do that," John was quiet.

"Better than 41,900 people demanding that you be hanged," Jake gritted his teeth, "Not only will I launch the greatest class-action litigation against your firm in the History of Mankind, but I will tip off the Justice Department and I will make sure that you spend the rest of your life in a Federal Prison."

John scoffed, maybe he was wrong in scoffing, but he had learned to never show your real face in his business, "You're so high and mighty Mr. Long."

"Donald Wilson got sentenced to 113 Years in a Federal Prison for systematically stealing my company away from me," Jake said, he placed his hands on the table and leaned closer to the phone, "Granted, Donald was stupid and he blatantly committed crimes, but you've kept them under wraps for decades, and if I don't have that money in 14 Days, they're going to be made know to the entire world, including the US Justice Department."

There was silence and he expected that, Jake Long had just delivered a knockout punch to his resolve, "It will take time to get all of that money."

"Then I suggest you get moving," Jake said, "You have 14 Days to do it."

**OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO**

"What are we going to do? What am I going to do? He'll kill me," Trevor sighed deeply and began to pace the width of John Marcus's Office. He had listened in on the whole phone call and if there was one thing that his father was good at, it was at making grand threats and delivering them.

John sighed and looked at his desk, "I want you to start liquidating all of our non-essential assets, accounts, hell file for loans from the bank. There is no way out of this, short of having my career and might I remind you, your career ripped apart by the Securities and Exchange Commission."

"I read over the non-essential components, but they equal out to about $13 Billion Dollars if we managed to get rid of it all," Trevor set down in the chair and rubbed his chin, "We still have $15 Billion Dollars to get a hold of."

"I'll put up $10 Billion with my own money," John told himself.

It really hurt to give up $10 Billion Dollars, but he couldn't risk the consequences of not being able to get the funds, "What about you?"

"I have trust fund," Trevor said, "But it's only $800 Million Dollars."

John looked back over to his computer and stared into the blank screen and then something clicked, "I have an idea, and it's just crazy enough to work."

"What is it?" Trevor asked.

"Get me the official readout of all our clients' accounts, not including INGB and you might want to bring a calculator and a lot of notebook paper," John said, he had done this before and he hoped to god that he was lucky enough to pull it off again.

**OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO**

"You rang?" Maxwell said from his open door.

Jake turned up from his computer and gave Maxwell an amused look before turning away from the letter that he was writing up and giving him his full attention, "I want you to call a meeting a joint meeting with all of the department and services heads, I need to tell them all about this."

"You think that's wise?" Maxwell told him as he stepped into the office.

"If John Marcus can't get his hands on $28 Billion Dollars by the end of these two weeks, I need to warn them," Jake said, turning his attention back to the computer, "I want them to know that we're on their side."

Maxwell set down in front of the desk, "What if they talk?"

"Have legal draw up a confidentiality agreement, iron clad and include lots of references to big fat lawsuits if they do blab," Jake said, turning his computer monitor towards Maxwell, "What do you think of my letter?"

**OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO**

_To the Commissioners the Securities and Exchange Commission, _

_It has come to my attention that John Marcus, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of 'Marcus and Associates Investments and Securities' has been engaging in illegal activities to support his business. It has also come to my attention that he has completely done away with 'International and National General Broadcasting Company's General Employee Benefit Account Fund', totaling $28 Billion Dollars._

_I do not know in truth what has happened to these funds, he tells me that they were lost in an investment. However, I suspect the worse. Mr. Marcus's public face and his private face are two very different things. _

_I gave Mr. Marcus 14 Days to recover the funds and return them to my company, but he has failed to do so. You should also be aware that my team and I suspect that he has been paying off SEC License Commissioners, my son recently was employed there, and the standard waiting period for a trading license is four years, he received it in one day. As you can see, I suspect that this is the tip of the iceberg. _

_I am writing you in hopes that you can force Mr. Marcus to do whatever he needs to do to return the $28 Billion Dollars to my 41,900 loyal, hardworking, employees. _

_Due to my need to recover these funds, I have also sent a similar letter to the United States Justice Department, the United States House of Representatives and Senate Finance Committees, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and to the President of the United States. _

_Jacob L. Long, _

_Chairman of the Corporate Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of International and National General Broadcasting Company_

**OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO**

"You're really going to do this?" Maxwell said, he was completely stupefied, Jake was very through. If there was one thing that the United State Government was good at, it was at kicking the ass of Corporations who violated the law and defrauded thousands of people of their money.

Jake nodded, "I'll send it when he fails to meet his deadline."

"You think he will?" Maxwell asked.

Jake laughed and leaned back in his chair, "I know his financials, don't ask how, but I do and he can't cover it by giving us his own money. And I know how much Trevor has, he could give everything he has and it wouldn't be enough. There's only one thing left and that's the skim off of his other's clients and in that case, he'll be caught soon enough."

"You're son will go down to you know," Maxwell pointed out to him.

Jake sighed and leaned forward to hold his head in his hands, "Don't remind me, I have an army of the highest paid attorney's on retainer for him, I secured astronomically high bail funds, but I haven't told Rose."

"God help you," Maxwell said.

"Well, it's for his own good, he made a very wrong decision and she's going to have to understand that," Jake tapped his hand against the table.

"She's still going to murder you," Maxwell grinned.

Jake sighed, "Tell me about it, by the way? Care to speak at my funeral?"


	3. Chapter 2 – Skimming off the Top

**Chapter 2 – Skimming off the Top **

Rose wasn't a snob, she wasn't, honestly.

But did that mean that she was going to drive around in a beat up, dirty little car? No, she had a driver and she was driven around in a limousine when she came to the City. Rose liked to avoid the city for a number of reasons, but if she had to go back to Manhattan, she did it in style. When she stepped out into the curb, the sharp heel of her high heeled shoes clicked against the cement. Ok, she looked like a snob, she would grant her detractors, but she wasn't one if you actually took the time to talk.

"Shall I wait her Mrs. Long?" Her driver asked her politely.

Rose shook her head and reached into her purse to withdraw a 100 Dollar Bill from the money clip she carried, "No, this will take a while, so… go take a nice lunch or go to a strip club, or whatever you do with your free time."

Her driver, who was long used to her sense of humor, grinned and walked around to get back into the driver's seat. Rose sighed and watched as the limousine pulled away. She was going to rip her husband and new one. As she turned and looked at the building that her husband now owned, she sighed. Trevor had arranged this and he had been proud of it, she could only wonder how he was feeling now. The more she thought about the way her husband and treated her son in the past few years. She grew almost red with anger. As she stomped through the doors and into the lobby in a blaze, the desk attendant, a nice young girl putting herself through college, stood up and looked at her in a confused manner, "Mrs. Long, how are you?"

"I'm fine Jessica," Rose told her as she stormed to the elevator, "You tell my, egomaniacal, cruel and somewhat stupid husband that I'm coming up."

Jessica sighed and nodded, "Yes Mrs. Long."

Once she was safely in the elevator, she looked at the panel that gave a description and her eyes immediately went to the top. She shook her head in annoyance when she realized that the top of the panel still read 'Trevor Long – Chief Executive Officer' on the top of the list of the offices that were on the top floor. She had long been taken on a tour of this building and she was familiar with it. Taking off her sunglasses and putting them into her purse, she blew out an irritated breath and put her free hand on her hip.

She had stayed out of Jake and Trevor's spat, she didn't want to take a side, because it was her husband and her son. If she could somehow rip herself apart and give one half of herself to Jake and the other to Trevor, then she would. But she couldn't and she had to remain neutral, until now.

She was going to give it to Jake, she was going to let him have it and then she was going to call her son and chew his ass out for doing the things that he had done today. Through all of the shit that she gave him about pushing Trevor out, their son was still in violation of the law and in that case, she'd always take her husband's side. Rose sighed again, she was truly the glue that held their family apart, otherwise, money with tear them apart.

**OOOO**

"You son of a bitch," Rose slammed the door behind her.

Jake looked up from his desk with a dry look, "I love you too dear."

Ignoring his response, she charged forward and slammed her purse on the table and took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk. Over the years, she had paid visits to him at work and each visit was similar to the other, everything that they had in common was that Rose was pissed at him, "If you don't explain everything to me right now, and if you mince words when you try to explain this to me, or if you continue to half ass explain all of this to me, the punch line: you die."

"It's simple," Jake said, leaning on his desk, "Our son, allowed the retirement and benefit funds of our entire work force to be invested with John Marcus, John promptly lost all of that money and I put his balls in a vice grip to get it all back."

"And other then doing that, how is Trevor culpable?" Rose asked.

Jake sighed and handed a piece of paper, she immediately recognized the label of the bank that they invested the children's trust funds in, and Trevor's was there was well. Rose snatched the paper out of his hands and Jake watched as her eyes read through the document, "He hasn't touched that account since we set it up for him, but four hours ago, he withdrew $1.5 Million. Now you are a logical person, why would he never touch it, ever, and then today withdraw $1.5 Million, within two hours of getting an Investment License that would take 4 years to get? Tell me Rose?"

"Lawyers, do you lawyers on standby?" Rose said, still reading the paper.

"Five," Jake nodded, "And I have funds set aside for funds and or bail."

"That's all we can do," Rose said, setting the paper down, "What's going to happen to him? I mean, his reputation, his career, what else can we do for him, our son?"

Jake looked to a piece of filler paper that he had written notes on when he spoken to his group of highly paid, highly trained and highly powerful lawyers, "It's highly unlikely that he'll go to prison, but the chances increase slightly if he knows of anything illegal that Marcus has done. Most likely, he'll be fined tens of millions possibly and he'll be watched for years by the Federal Government. As for his reputation, he probably won't be able to do business again. No one will want to touch him because of the SEC looking over his shoulder. It's quite a shame, but I will probably have to bring him back here, if he wants to work in his sector again."

"Make this right Jake," Rose said, "I'm telling you, make it right, or the minute you fall asleep, I'm going to take a rusty spoon and cut it off, I will castrate your ass."

Jake held up his hands, "Hey, I'm doing the best that I can."

"Good," Rose scowled, "Now let's order lunch, there's a Chinese Place close by."

**OOOO**

He was getting in deep, too deep and he knew it.

If there was one thing that his father had imparted on him, it was to do your business clean and if you were going to do something improper, let it be something that it is the smallest and most irrelevant thing. Trying to skim a few billion dollars off of thousands of investment accounts, that was the farthest thing from _'small'_ and _'irrelevant'_ in fact it was one of the biggest things. Besides, there was no guarantee that he would not be getting caught. He was going to lose everything that he had built before he was thirty, but for the sake of his family's company and for the sake of this company too. He needed to do this, "I have a $3 Billion siphoned out, but I'm still running of accounts that I can take money out of."

"Continue," John said, as he sat down in his chair across from Trevor, "You know your father's business practice better than anyone. Will he live up to his threats?"

Trevor looked up from the pages upon pages of financial statements and nodded at John, "First, he'll sue you for ten times your personal net worth, and then he'll sue you for the worth of this firm. He will take you to town and he'll subpoena every piece of paper in this firm, pour over them, give it to the Justice Department and then take every single thing that you have left and have you blackballed. That is after you get out of prison, when in essence my father finally gets done with you."

"He'll chew me up and spit me out," John said, taking the boy's words in.

"That is an understatement," Trevor nodded and looked back down to the books.

**OOOO**

"Why didn't you say all of these things, and for that matter, why didn't you just stop him from taking the job?" Rose said taking a bite of the eggroll that she had on the small paper plate that had come with the Chinese food.

Jake shook his head, "I thought that he'd get through it, but it was as if he listed every single thing that I hated or disagreed with and did them all."

They had talked and talked more about what had led to this whole ordeal, Jake admitted that blame for this whole situation could be split right down the middle. Though, Jake was clear to make sure that Rose knew that the biggest issue in this situation, short of Trevor being blackballed, was completely Trevor's fault. You didn't go to a casino and put all of your money into the first machine and expect to double it. Odds are that you were going to lose it on your first try and that was the same analogy he used when he debated this issue with him when the account was authorized by Trevor.

"We are in serious trouble if we don't get that money back, I will have to cut $28 Billion Dollars from across the board to cover it and the only way that I'll be able to do that is to hurt some other sector of the company," Jake said and smiled at his wife, "So that's why I plan on taking Marcus to the cleaners for every penny."

Rose nodded, "You understand the pressure that you're under?"

"Do you understand that Trevor was responsible?" Jake raised an eyebrow.

Shaking her head, she sighed, "I really hate to say it and I know you know that I really hate it, but you're right. He is responsible for all of this, and for himself."

"But I'm going to get him out of it when the time comes," Jake said with a nod.

Rose was going to respond to him, but that was the moment when the phone on Jake's desk decided to ring. He leaned forward and looked at the identification of the call. His eyes widened and looked up to Rose. It took him a moment to speak, "That's Trevor."

She contemplated this for a moment before Jake pressed the speakerphone phone function of the phone and before he or Rose could speak, Trevor began to speak with him in a hushed tone, "I'm sorry about all of this, it is completely and totally, my fault."

"41,900 People's wellbeing hinged on your decision and it kicked you in the ass," Jake said and took a drink of his coffee, "Now, I don't know exactly how you're going to get that capital back to the company, but I anticipate that you will find one way to get it done."

"It's what I have to do," Trevor said, "Even if it costs me everything, I screwed over everyone that had ever worked for us and I need to deal with it. I don't think I need to tell you what John is ordering me to do over here."

Jake smiled and looked down, "I have a pretty good idea."

"So when I'm caught you'll come to my rescue?" Trevor kidded lightly.

"Your mother is making me," Jake answered, "But don't worry, I'm standing by with everything you'll need to keep out of prison. I've got lawyers and money standing by. All you have to do is get me that $28 Billion Dollars."

Trevor sighed, he was clearly irritated, "I know, I'm trying to do that."

"Well I suggest you get too it," Jake said, "I have a meeting with all of the departmental and services heads tomorrow morning and I'm going to tell them everything. Trevor, I can't stress the point enough that they would be demanding your head on a platter, yours or John Marcus's, or even both."

He sounded quiet, "I know."

It was only beginning to hit Trevor that he had in fact been responsible for all of this. Investing the $28 Billion Dollars into an investment and securities firm? How stupid could he have been? His father had warned him, but at the time had no power to stop him, "Dad, I'm sorry that I never listened."

"There was a reason that I objected," Jake said, he was feeling silently smug, "It was never to spite you, it's just you were making a lot of mistakes that I made when I was just starting out and I saw it coming. You were strong headed, arrogant and slightly cocky about your decisions, right?"

Trevor, albeit it annoyed with those words, couldn't help but agree, "You took the words right out of my mouth."

"Well," Jake said, leaning forward and placing his hands on the desk, "I should let you know that CNBC is airing a biography on this company later tonight, I want you to watch it, and you'd better get back to your method of giving us our capital back. Remember, I expect it back in two weeks."

"Bye Dad," Trevor said.

"Bye Son," Jake said before he hung up and looked back up to Rose.

"That was the first pleasant conversation you've had in months," She said.

Jake's eyebrows rose into his hairline as he nodded, he too was surprised by Trevor's call. If anything, he had expected Trevor to be prideful and to be dignified about this problem, "This is all going to be over very soon, I'm encouraged by Trevor's call, I think he knows that what he's done is wrong."

Rose nodded, "I think that too."

Getting up from the chair, she put her hands on her hip and just before she was going leave the office for the restroom, she smiled, "And you had better keep this gravy train rolling, I need to be with my diamonds and limos and if those things get taken away from me, I say again, I will castrate you."

"Don't worry babe," He said seriously, "You'll never, ever lose your money."

**OOOO**

Jake watched as the camera panned in on the reporter that had produced the documentary. It had been assembled from clips of other interviews and one could tell that it had been scratched up in one day. It was nicely put together, and the production was great, but you could tell that it was quickly put together. Not to mention the fact that the company that they were doing the story on was actually their parent company, and he had made it very clear when he had learned about this that if they portrayed the company in any light that would make the shareholders lose confidence, he'd fire them.

In fact his exact words to the President of that particular station were as followed: _'If they make any remarks that could even hint to uncertainty in INGB and have a detrimental effect on the the stock price, I will fire you, them and everyone responsible for it. And I won't send you all a pink slip, I will summon you to my office and fire you all myself, and I will eviscerate you._'

The point had come across, that's what the memo he had received back from the Station President said and he was told that he should expect great things from this story. It was airing across all INGB-Owned Financial Cable Channels and one of its normal cable news channels. The effect was simple, to maintain that sense of confidence in the company. Trevor's departure would no doubt send a shockwave in its stock and overall appearance, but this was the cure, and he had no doubt that it would work:

"International and National General Broadcasting Company –

It is the most powerful broadcasting-entertainment and publishing company in the world, it is the third most valuable company in the world, second only to Apple and Exxon Mobile. When you look at its status within its own sector of the world economy, you will find that INGB is and has remained at the top of the pack for over twenty five years. With hundreds of billions of dollars in cash reserves, assets and its immense grid on which its business operates, it is unmatched. This is the story of how this forth-rate, privately owned cable company that no one had ever heard of became a Broadcasting Empire."

Jake smiled and leaned back in his chair with his coffee in hand.

Oh yes, he quite liked it a lot so far.

**OOOO**

"It was a complete shock to me," Jake said into the camera, the clip had been shot about ten years ago and they were apparently reusing it, "It was anticipated within my family, that after my grandmother died, she would hand INGB over to my mother or my aunt, but not to me, I was shocked."

"That's not all Mr. Long got on that fateful night that his grandmother's lawyers. We were told later by Mr. Long off camera that his grandmother had, along with the business and titles, but the bulk of her estate and all of her possessions. That included a fortune of over $600 Million Dollars, several houses, a fleet of limousines and a yacht. Mr. Long had planted his flag, and though the sum of $600 Million Dollars is quite a lot of money, it would only be an almost non-existing percentage of Mr. Long's personal fortune which is estimated to be around $31 Billion Dollars today"

"I had no idea what I was doing, I had surrounded myself with the titans of Wall Street and the most powerful men in the universe and that's how I learned and developed my philosophies," Jake said in the clip, he had been sitting in his old office at the old office building a few blocks away.

Pictures began to flash up on the men and women who had taught him everything he knew. He remembered all of them, they were all ultra-billionaires and ultra-powerful. The last picture that flashed up was that of Donald Wilson and at seeing his face, Jake smiled. He had sent that man to prison. He wondered when they would mention that, "The most profiled of these Capitan's of industry that advised the man who would later be called, the Emperor of Broadcasting, Donald Wilson. Later in their relationship, Mr. Long and Mr. Wilson would clash and only one would come out on top."

Ok, Jake chuckled.

Maybe he could be late going home, he wanted to watch this.

**OOOO**

If his father could live up to his reputation, he would be able to calm the storm that would come against them when this came out. If he were still CEO, he'd be the one informing the employees of this and he'd take full responsibility for it. But his father was CEO and Chairman and in this case, he could actually place blame where it rested, himself and John Marcus. He was confident that he would be shielded from the rage that would erupt from all sides and one thing he was betting on was getting this money back. Even if it was at the expense of other accounts, he had the lively hood of 41,900 working people to think about, not these investors.

Every retirement and benefit account that employees with the salary of $1,000,000 or higher had were in secure bank accounts. Before his foolish mistake a year and a half ago, everyone who earn less than $1,000,000 were in safe account as well. He thought that if he could put that big sum of money somewhere it would grow, that would the best thing, but he didn't even bother to realize that he could lose it all at Marcus's discretion.

If at the end of the day, he had to step out from behinds his parents and take the bullets of the raging employees of INGB, he would, but that was only in the event that he couldn't get this money back. Sighing, he highlighted another fund that he felt that they could skim out of and looked back up the television in his new office. The biography on his family's company had been on for an hour and he was turning in and out, but the next few words caught his attention:

"When we come back," The reporter's voice provided something of a commentary of the next few pictures of himself with his father standing next to him, "Some called him the prodigy to greatness, others called him the failure son, either way it would lead to Jacob Long's resignation as CEO, Trevor Long's rise to the third most powerful company on Earth, and the eventual return of Mr. Long as CEO after his son stepped down. Though it's only speculative in their reasoning, we have the opinion of former insiders."

Trevor shrank back in his seat and looked back to the books.

Was this how history would remember him?

A prodigy to the Emperor of Broadcasting and Publishing, turned failure, and as he looked at the highlighted accounts, _crook _as well? It was in that moment that Trevor realized, he had lost it all and in by undertaking an action that he needed to do, would have no chance of getting it back. He sighed and picked up the remote to the television and muted the channel. All he had left to do was to bite his tongue and keep highlighting. His family's wellbeing was at stake here, he no longer cared for his own.


	4. Chapter 3 – Guilt

**Chapter 3 – Guilt**

Running a hand through his hair, he stepped off of the elevator of his building and walked towards his condo. This was, quite literally, the worst day of his life and this condo was the only shelter that he would have from it. Outside, he was the failure CEO and now compliant in investment and securities fraud. This time last week, he had been the most powerful man in this town, he had been the most powerful CEO in the world and now he was sinking back. Opening up his door, he hung his coat on the rack near the door and quickly shut the door behind him.

This place had been his home, ever since he had moved out of his parent's home. He lived on 11th Aveneue, near the waterfront and at night he had a spectacular view of the Hudson River and the Financial District. Stepping towards one of the large windows in the main room, he leaned up against the window frame and stared towards the Avenue of the Americas. He had fully intended on that being his playground, it had been his pet project for months and he had fully committed the company that his family had built into buying it. Now, his father was in control of it and he was on the verge of having the last bits of reputation that he had left, destroyed completely.

Turning back, he looked back to his home.

This was the only thing that he had left in his control, this $69 Million Dollar Condo. At first, when he had moved into it, it felt like was living in a hotel and he didn't like it. But the next morning, after the move was complete, he woke up to the sight of the sun shining over the Hudson River and he was entranced by it. More than likely, this is where he would reside, going into his forced retirement before he was thirty. And in this entire situation, the thing that depressed him the most was the fact that his career and his reputation would be gone before he hit the age of thirty.

Trevor was very rich, and he didn't have to work a day in his life, but he loved working, he loved working in general and he'd never be able to get a job in this town or in any firm in the world after this. They'd suspect him of having that bad reputation of screwing people over. It didn't matter if it was the entire workforce of INGB or the investors in John Marcus's Firm, those actions would stay with him for the rest of his professional life and they would both end his professional life.

Sighing, he walked across the main room and found himself in his hall closet, it really was its own room in general, but he liked to refer to it as his hall closet. It served as his closet for the master bedroom, and after walking to the back of the room, he found himself presented with a large safe.

He had everything that was important to him in that safe. He had about a $1 Million Dollars in cash, 5 gold bars, his social security number, his birth certificate, and his college degrees in it. Another crime that he could potentially get slapped for was the million dollars in cash and the gold bars in his safe. The US Government wanted to tax that million and they prohibited private ownership of gold bullion. It was a life line in case the bottom dropped out of his life and though this couldn't make the bottom drop out of it, he had to make sure that it was there, for his own sake.

Punching in his code to the safe, turning the dial on the front of it and saying his passphrase, Trevor opened the safe and looked inside. On the top level, the $1 Million Dollars in cash was primly stacked, ready to be taken out if necessary, the second level had the gold bullion, the third had his most important documents in it and the bottom had his college degrees. Getting down to his knees, he reached for the documents and clutched them in his hands. All of that work, all of it was worthless now, he was simply versed in the process and the history of it, but he would never be able to work at any other establishment other than INGB and that would only be at the goodwill of his father, whom he doubted would ever let him back in to the company.

**OOOOO**

Jake sighed as he put his car into park and pressed the button on his dashboard that would close the garage door behind him. He had just been through one hell of a day. He had returned to become the principle owner and Chief Executive Officer of his company once again. To be honest, he didn't miss it, he had been thankful to step away from it, but the company had taken some hits in the past few years under his son's leadership and he felt that it was time to go back. A year ago, INGB's stock price was at $320 Dollars a share, and then Trevor initiated the buyout of the Avenue of the Americas and the stock lost 25% of its value. That was the beginning of his thoughts of removing Trevor as CEO. Thankfully, he could always do it.

As Chairman, he represented the hundreds of thousands of investors and he made it clear to express his opinion to his son. Trevor almost never listened, and that only accelerated his demise. Sighing, Jake grabbed the tick dossier that was in his passenger seat and opened his door. Setting the folder down on the roof his car, he reached in, grabbed his coffee and shut the door behind him with his foot before making his way into the house. He was so exhausted that he forgot to lock the door and to take his keys out of the ignition. But all thoughts of his car left his mind when he made it into the house. He spied his youngest child, Shawn, sitting at the island in the kitchen, typing on his laptop computer. Sighing, he slammed his folders on the next to him and looked up, "Why are you still up? It is 11:40 at night."

"Three essays, one for English and the other two are for History," Shawn said, not taking his eyes off of the computer. Jake had long come to the conclusion that his youngest son's work ethic and habits were much like his own, Trevor had Rose's habits and ethic, "Really important, and why weren't you home at 8:00 like you normally are? It's a two way street there Dad."

Jake smiled and settled himself on the stool and flipped open the first folder and the pen that he had attached to the folder itself, "I've had a very interesting day. I had to reverse a lot of bad decisions in twenty four hours that were made collectively over two years. That's why I'm late, and by the way smart ass, your mom knew I'd be late, I told her when she came down to the city and lunch with me. Speaking of which, where is your mom?"

"Sleeping," Shawn responded dully, "Morgan too, I was planning on going to sleep myself too, but I want to get these over with right now, is that okay?"

Jake nodded and wrote some notes on some problem areas that he had found in the cash reserves report, "I take it she told you what happened?"

"You and the Board removed Trevor as CEO of the company, he made the mistake of putting a freaking pension fund in an Investment Firm and he's going to go down for fraud and bribery," Shawn chuckled, "I can see where he got his business brains from, I know that it's stupid to do all of that."

Jake smiled, "Ever consider getting into the family business?"

"Every day of my life," Shawn nodded, still not meeting the curious glint in his father's eyes, "I've never really admitted this, because I knew you'd never let me live it down, but I've always admired everything you've done and I've hung on every word you always told Trevor, he never did that."

Jake smiled, "I might have a son take over for me yet."

"First rule of business," Shawn began.

"Don't trust anyone," Jake and Shawn said at the same time.

"Trusting people can end up screwing you over," Shawn added at the end.

"But Trevor's screwed himself and I don't know what to do," Jake retorted.

Shawn nodded, "College Degrees don't always guarantee that the recipient of them is going to do well in the real world. That Master Degree and that Bachelors at the end of the day don't mean shit if you're not prepared for it."

"You shouldn't dig at Trevor all the way," Jake told him, as he signed off another report that he had just skimmed over. In hindsight, he should have read all through it, but Jake had developed a unique talent of picking out the most important points in an incredibly convoluted and complex multipage document, "He's brilliant with numbers and stocks, he could pick out Million Dollars Stocks before he hit puberty, he's much better than me at it."

"But there's a difference between being good with finance and numbers then being a CEO," Shawn looked up from the computer this time, "You have to maintain the relationships between the Board, Executives and the General workforce, not just do things because you think it's financially wise. Did you ever wonder why the media sometimes refers to Trevor as the 'Failure Son'?"

"That's not true," Jake said weakly told his son.

"Is it not? Am I correct in saying that short of family, everyone on that Board wanted you back as CEO? Am I not correct in saying that when the stock when down last year, they almost revolted against you for not exercising your authority to bring him down? Am I correct in saying that from the moment he took over, you have done nothing but bitch at each other because you felt he was being foolish and naïve?" Shawn said, he was angry now, his father was trying to lessen his guilty conscious and Shawn was now bent on making his father understand that he didn't need to.

"You're right, but-…" Jake was cut off again by the younger man.

"There is no but, what you did was right, this company is your legacy and the legacy of this family and you put it in the hands of a family member who was inexperienced, unqualified, and underprepared to take care of it," Shawn brought up a finger and pointed it at his father, "All you can do now is wait and see if Trevor gets you your money back, most likely from stealing it from Mr. Marcus's other investors, and then do what you do to keep him out of prison. If he goes to prison, he won't have a shred of hope in working again, you know that I know that, all you can do is to be there for him Dad."

Jake blinked, Shawn had begun to speak again, "I can't understand why you defend him, he doesn't have any real talent beyond picking stock and balancing budgets, if he was going to be effective at all, he'd need to master the entire equation. Just help him get through it, but don't start blaming yourself, you didn't do any of this, you took a chance and it backfired."

"That's the truest thing I've heard all day," Jake realized.

"I'm glad I can help," Shawn said and looked back down to his computer.

"You ever consider becoming a lawyer?" Jake asked his son.

Shawn looked up to him and grinned, "Why would I want that, weren't you listening, I hope to have your job by the time I'm 21, so no law school for me."

"You might have a good shot at it," Jake said, he hadn't even opened his mind to the possibility of having Shawn succeed him. But that impassioned little rant was opening his mind to the possibility, "So your day was good."

Shawn chuckled, "I had a kick out of the news today."

"About Trevor?" Jake asked with a raised brow.

The younger man nodded, "I knew it would happen, smug moment."

"I'll make you CEO and Chairman yet," Jake chuckled and went back to his work.

**OOOOO**

Rose groaned and pulled the blanket tighter over her as she felt the bed sink down on one side. She was still in that place between sleep and consciousness and she must have been in a dream when Jake heard her utter a few dry words. There was something strange about Rose when she slept, when she dreamed, she talked in her dreams, every single time and she was known to say some of the wackiest shit ever. However, what she spouted off that night by far took the cake and he made a note in his mind to remind her she said it later. "Okay! Okay, make it quick and don't get it in my hair."

Jake looked at her incredulously and he couldn't help but laugh out loud and that caused Rose to shoot up. That was an after effect of spending most of her life in the Huntsclan and again, that was one of things she always did when she was woken up. Rose put her hand over her chest to catch her breath, "I can't believe you did that, you scared the holy shit out of me!"

"Okay, okay, don't get it in my hair?" He asked with an unbelieving deep chuckle, "Just what the hell kind of dream where you having there Rose?"

Rose looked down to the blanket, "You don't want to know."

"If I had more energy, I might, but for the moment you're correct," Jake nodded and as he slid his pajama bottoms on, he slumped down into the bed with a satisfied yawn, "I'm sorry I've been ignoring you, been really busy."

"It's okay," Rose nodded, "I like having time to myself."

He looked at her curiously, "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Rose nodded with a smile, "And I know that you're happy about all this."

With those words, Jake leaned closer to her, "Who said I was happy about it?"

That had been the prevailing thought in the back of her mind for all of these years, that he had been waiting in the wings to pounce back on the company, but by his inflection and the tone of his voice, she suspected that she was wrong, and that surprised her greatly. This man that was now sitting in her bed and staring at her with puppy-dog eyes, waiting for her answer had built and empire of being driven and to have him just imply that he wasn't driven anymore was amazing, "Well, I've always assumed that you didn't want to leave it, that you just wanted to give Trevor a chance, but now that you're back I expected you to be on cloud nine or something."

"First of all," He said, leaning up and thumping her on the forehead, to which she promptly rubbed it and scowled at him, "You have to get something through that thick skull of yours, I do not miss it, I never did miss it. You think I like having about a hundred reports and contracts to sign before I got to sleep every night? You think I like having the pressure or the expectations of tens of millions of investors and employees on my shoulders? I don't miss it, I enjoyed my pseudo-retirement. I was still involved, but I wasn't in on the finer details and I loved it, but I had knew that if Trevor screwed up the company would need me again and I would most definitely go back to run it until I could actually train someone and someone who believes in my business model."

"You're still hoping that it's one of your children?" Rose asked dryly.

Jake nodded, "Shawn's got a lot of potential, I just need to push him in the right direction and you know, he just ranted my definition of a CEO, so I'm considering grooming him to take over for me."

Rose was serious now, "But he's still going to college, right? He said that he's going to college?"

"He said that a College Degree doesn't mean that you're a complete and total genius," Jake said with a loud yawn, "I want him to go to school but I'm not going to force him into doing it."

Rose scowled and reached up to slap the top of his head, when Jake recoiled and rubbed his head, he looked up to her, "What the fuck was that for?"

"He's going to school," Rose said and slapped him on the top of the head again, "Tell me you want him to go to school or I'm going to keep slapping you on top of the head."

Rose did it again and this time Jake caught her wrist and flung it back at her, "Rose! Damn it, stop it! I'm not going to force him to go to college if he doesn't want too and if he wants to come and work for me, I'll let him do that and if you hit me on more time, I swear that I'll-… eh… you're very lucky that you're good at having sex or you'd be out on the street before you could blink. Just don't worry about our kids Rose, they're more then capable and well off."

"I hope you know what you're doing," Rose unleashed her death glare on him one last time before turning over and leaning into her pillow.

'_Fuck… I don't know what I'm doing, it's more like me making it up as I go along…' _ Jake thought as he leaned up against his pillow and as the lights in the room turned off with a clapping of his hands.

**OOOOO**


	5. Chapter 4 – Rivalries and Blackmail

**Chapter 4 – Rivalries and Blackmail. **

Shawn Long was very much a compulsive organizer.

He was in his last year of High School and while some kids were out skateboarding or causing mayhem, he was doing his work and organizing his life. For god sakes he had a full scale, office grade file cabinet in his bedroom for his school work and a credenza for everything else. Not to mention the hundreds of dollars that he spent monthly on office supplies, when in fact the only thing he had to use them on was his school work. It didn't matter to his parents though, they were just proud of the fact that that he was like this, it was a good probability that he'd be this way for the rest of his life and that's what they counted on.

Despite the fact that it was 12:37 and that he should go to bed, he couldn't sleep, he kept thinking about this internal shakeup at the company that he wanted to run one day. He'd always thought Trevor was an imbecile on matters of business, but this latest development only sought to further that assumption. Who invested life savings into an investment banking fund? You'd have to be a complete and total feeble minded idiot to do that. Trevor should have been run off of Wall Street, and in a sense, he supposed, his brother would soon be. No company in the world would hire him after this disaster of epic proportions.

Sliding into his office chair that was in front of his large computer desk in his bedroom, Shawn reached over to the left of the desk itself and opened up the credenza cabinet and began to sort through the many files that he had. The paper that he was searching for was for his Senior Class Project, a project that included the student picking a career to follow into and the shadowing someone in that profession. Now the private school that he went too had the children of Federal Judges, Congressman and other Wall Street Titans as Students, so Job Shadows of this magnitude were not uncommon. But the subject of his Job Shadow didn't even know that he was the subject and he intended on telling him about it in the morning.

If he e-mailed his teacher and told her that he was going to be going to shadow his father for the day and to call his mother to confirm it, he'd be able to spend the entire day at the Corporate World Headquarters, and to be in the environment. It was something that he craved, he longed to play that game and even though he'd be able to do it legally in a few months, he'd like to get a big dose of it now. Besides, he wanted to be on the inside and see every moment of his father's day tomorrow.

Finding the paper, he pulled it out of the file and shut the cabinet before turning in his chair and laying it on his desk. Quickly reading over the instructions, he began to practically write the e-mail to his teacher in his head before finally abandoning the paper. Shawn stood up and grabbed a book of yellow note paper and a pen and set them on the desk for the morning. Yes, he'd do his Job Shadow tomorrow. He'd planned on doing it in a few weeks, but he didn't want to miss the inner workings after this fiasco occurred under the watch of his fanatically stupid brother.

Shawn smiled and opened up his e-mail on his computer.

It was all coming together, he'd would finally open his father's eyes.

**OOOO**

The series of events that would push Jake to his limit started with a phone call at 4:00 AM that morning.

"Fucking seriously," Jake grumbled as his hand fumbled for his charging cellphone on the bedside table. Detaching the cord, his opened his eyes and looked at the ID on the screen. _'Does Maxwell ever fucking sleep?' _Jake thought irritably as he pressed answer button and held it up to his ear, "You'd better have a damn good reason for waking me up!"

Frankly, Jake didn't give a shit if he woke the entire house up, he loved his seldom sleep and he hated to be woken up from it. However, his anger subsided substantially when he heard the almost disbelieving tone in Maxwell's voice, "Jake, I just got a subpoena from the DOJ, they're demanding that we turn over all financial documents concerning Marcus."

Jake shot up and clapped his hands to turn the lights on, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. He squinted his eyes as he stumbled to his office that was built across from the master bedroom and turned the light on at his desk, "Please tell me that they haven't found out about the money."

"I don't know," Maxwell sounded genuinely exhausted, "Point is though, we have a day to turn over all of the documents, or you and I are going to be held in contempt and they'll issue a bench warrant for our arrests."

Jake sighed and rubbed his eyes before slapping his hand against the desk, "Well what fucking choice do we have? Give them all the documents that they request. By the way, I want you to call the Attorney General into my office tomorrow, I need to speak with him about the account."

"And about Trevor?" Maxwell offered.

"Well he's going to destroy my kid, I've got to head him off," Jake nodded and began to rub the back his neck, "Just prepare them to be sent."

Little did Jake know, the US Department of Justice was not only opening up an investigation on Marcus and Associates, but also INGB and Marcus's other big clients. This was only the tip of the iceberg for this his escapade.

**OOOO**

It was their method of operating, Jake supposed as he looked at the phone in shock. There wasn't anything that he had to worry about necessarily, but there was with John Marcus. If Marcus didn't give him that $28 Billion Dollars before the Federal Government swarmed in on him, he'd have to go through official channels to do that and it would take a long time to get every dime of it back. It was going to impact him if he liked it or not, when the Markets found out about all of this, they'd react accordingly and when his employees found out, they'd act accordingly.

Jake would be forced to do things that he wouldn't like to do, he'd have to see beyond what people wanted and what people needed and he'd have to choose for himself what he was going to do about it. If you wanted this life, you'd have to make those choices sometimes and though he had done it before, he had stayed away from them through the majority of his career and tried to control his environment so that he didn't have to do it. But every so often things slipped out of his control and he'd be forced to make them, this was one of those moments and he hated it.

The reason it was so foreign to Jake was because he hadn't had many of them in this 25 years and he'd pay any price to have it go away.

Sighing, Jake picked up the telephone on his desk and pressed Trevor's number on the Speed Dial panel, he had to warn Trevor that the feds were looking at him now. It hadn't even occurred to Jake that they could move so quickly, but they did and now he had to twiddle the Federal Government's Advantage down quickly. If Jake could warn Trevor that the Government was looking at the firm he worked at, that would give at least Trevor a moment to duck out of the way of the guns that were now pointed at John Marcus, "Dad, do you know what time it is right now?"

"4:21 in the morning," Jake answered and bean to scribble notes down on a piece of paper that he had in front of him, "I just got a call from Maxwell, apparently the Justice Department just issued subpoena for all of our documents that have Marcus and Associate's name on them."

On the other line, he could tell that Trevor had shot to attention from whatever he was doing and he was now talking into the phone frantically, so frantically in fact that it scared Jake himself. He had never heard his son speak like this and he didn't want to hear it anymore. But he had the feeling that he was going to be hearing it a lot more then he wanted to in the coming days and perhaps weeks, "Oh my god, what did the subpoena? Can you tell me specifically what they wanted from you and are you under the bullet yourself over this whole mess that I made?"

"I don't know," Jake scratched his forehead, "But I'm going to call the Attorney General tomorrow and see if he'll come down to my office tomorrow, there are a few things that I want to talk to him about."

"You have to make sure that he secures this money for you," Trevor groaned, he was in too deep now.

"I plan on it son," Jake said, "I've already got a list of potential incentives for him."

"What?" Trevor asked, he felt as if he had a right to know.

Jake shook his head, sensing this from his son, "Remember Trevor, if it were not for you, we wouldn't even be in this situation so don't act as if you have any right to know what I am going to try to do to save this company for destruction."

"I guess you're right," He said, he sounded depressed, "I'll let you go."

And without saying goodbye, Trevor hung up the phone. Jake looked at it in surprise, his son was always polite on the phone, he always had been. Maybe this was really getting too him. Well, Jake supposed, if he had been responsible for this, he'd be depressed too. Shaking his head, he hung up the phone and dropped his head into his arms on the desk. He felt completely and totally helpless about this.

"What the matter?" Rose asked sleepily from the door.

Jake looked up and shook his head, "Everything is coming down."

"What do you mean?" She asked again, yawning loudly.

"The Department of Justice just served subpoenas on the company, I have to give them all of the documents that we have with Marcus and Associates or Maxwell and I are going to prison," Jake sighed and shook his head, "And I wouldn't mind that as much as I need to get those people their money back from Marcus."

Rose frowned and walked behind the desk and placed herself in his lap. She leaned down and laid her head on his chest, "You've gotten through worse things."

"No I haven't," Jake realized as he wrapped his arms around her waist, "I actually haven't, this is the first time that I've ever had to deal with a loss like this before."

Something occurred to Rose, it was only a fleeting thing, and she almost dismissed it, but her husband was very distraught, "Do you need me to help you Jake?"

"Help me do what?" Jake looked up to her.

"Well," Rose began, "I'm very good at finding things out about people that they want to keep hidden. Would you like me to find some things out about the Attorney General? Or perhaps the President himself, it could help you get your money."

Jake thought about that for a moment, normally, he wouldn't have done that, but in times of war, the law fell silent. Sometimes you needed to make these choices as he had realized earlier, and perhaps now was the time, "How would you do it?"

"I have my ways," Rose winked at him, "You leave that to me, I promise that it will attract no attention to you, and if you want me to, I'll get started in the morning."

He was silent for a moment, he needed to give it a little more thought. He was desperate, and he didn't want to impede the investigation into Marcus, but he couldn't let that money be frozen up, "How long would it take?"

"I could have it by tomorrow afternoon," Rose replied to him.

Jake raised an eyebrow, "That quick?"

"Like I said," Rose nodded, "I do have my ways."

"Do it," Jake said.

**OOOO**

She had to make sure that Jake had gone back to sleep before she made the call to her old background contact. Rose had used him for years to find information on all sorts of people, from the people she hired to watch her kids, to business partners that had done business with the Huntsclan's front company. He was very good, in fact he was the best, and even after she left the Huntsclan, he still offered to do work for her at a price. As long as she paid him, he'd do his job and she expected no different from him now, "Rose, do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Malcolm," Rose said, running a hand through her messy hair as she looked out at the darkened Long Island Beachfront. The waves rolling onto the beach had an odd calming effect on her, "I need information on someone by tomorrow afternoon."

"Jesus," He told her, he sounded as if he was crawling out of bed, "Who is it that is so important that you need information on them that quick. I mean, it will be my personal best if I can do it and I've been doing this for thirty years."

"The Attorney General of the United States," Rose told him.

Malcolm was silent for a moment and then he began to laugh, "You're not serious?"

"I will pay you $5 Million Dollars," Rose told him, "I am quite serious about this."

"$5 Million you say?" He sounded intrigued, she normally only paid him $500,000, this really was big, "What do you want on him?"

"Dirty little secrets, arrests that were expunged, known vices, laws that he might have broken and gotten away with, any financial misconduct, I know he was a Vietnam Vet, any bad things he might over done over there what would garner him hate over here," Rose wanted to be thorough, "He's about to come down on my husband and he could cause my husband's company to come undone and I will not have that, I need it by tomorrow afternoon."

"I'll do it," He said with a satisfied smile, "I'll get you want you need keep him off your back."

Rose nodded with a smile, "Don't disappoint me."

"I trust I'll see you at the Country Club this Saturday?" Malcolm asked lightly.

Rose nodded, "Yeah, I'm going to ask my kids if they can all come, it's been a while since we've all had a meal together."

You see, Malcolm Arnold wasn't any ordinary person who had amazing abilities to uncover secrets that had been buried. Malcolm was the son of the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Arnold, the heir to a $5 Billion Dollar Fortune. He didn't need to work, he had plenty of money. He just moonlighted doing this for a little extra cash on the side. He was a Millionaire, but he wouldn't have his father's money until he died, and he needed to keep feeding his bank accounts and his lifestyle, "Well that's good, and I'll be sure to get your information as quick as I can."

"That's why I called you," Rose grinned.

**OOOO**

**The Next Morning **

Jake sipped on his coffee and studied the reports in front of him. It was the usual stuff that he had to do that when he didn't finish it the night before. Signing off on one of the reports, he flipped to the next one and he was about to dive into another one when he was tapped on his shoulder. He turned and smiled at his wife and he instantly knew the look on her face, like she was hiding a little secret, "Do you have something you want to share with me dear?"

"You'll have your information earlier than I expected," Rose said, sitting down next to him and handing him a piece of paper that she had in her hand. She had just gotten off another phone call with Malcolm and he had told her that getting information on him was very easy. It was hidden well, but Malcolm had been better and he had cracked it in five hours, he wasn't done, but this was a list of some of the things that he had found, "There's still more coming and I'm expecting a dossier of it all to be delivered to me when it's all put together, but what I've got right now is pretty incriminating. Do you remember when Lehman Brothers went down a few years back?"

Jake nodded and grinned, "I remember, I cried for a week when it went down and took $400 Million Dollars in my own cash with it."

"Well," Rose said pointing to her first note, "He pulled his stock out two days before it was announced the the Treasury would not be bailing it out. But here's the thing, we know that the Secretary of the Treasury came to this decision three days before it was announced, and at the time, the Attorney General was the-…"

"Assistant Secretary of the Treasury," Jake realized.

"And while he was in Vietnam, Major Paul Erickson had a bit of a mental breakdown and ended up gunning down an entire village," Rose said, rubbing the back of her head with a sad smile, "It's sad, but the Army backed him up and covered it up, no one ever found out, but my contact did. Not to mention his little arrest when he came back."

"Little arrest?" Jake asked, taking another look at her notepaper.

"Oh yeah," Rose grinned and snickered, "He was arrested for possession of Cocaine and Heroin when he came home, but the funny thing is where the police found it."

Oh lord, Jake thought and turned to stifle a chuckle, "W-where did they find it?"

"Up his ass," Rose chuckled and leaned forward to bury her head in her hand.

Jake snickered and rubbed his chest, "Oh my god."

"My contact says there's more, but he's trying to get his hand on the evidence," Rose tapped her hand against the table, "I think you have your leverage."

It was in that moment that Shawn decided to walk into the kitchen and both he and Rose looked back to their son. He was late for school, his sister had left about fifteen minutes ago, and Rose was about to go up there and ask him what the fuck he was doing. But then she noticed that he only had a yellow notepad in his hand. Rose raised an eyebrow in time with Jake's, "Shawn Long, you'd better give me a good reason why you're fifteen minutes late for school."

Shawn had practiced his little lie many times, "You forgot?"

"Forgot what?" Rose asked.

"I have my job shadow," Shawn said pointing at Jake, "I've had this planned for a month, I can't believe that you forgot."

Rose and Jake looked at each other, they must have forgotten it. That was strange, because if Jake forgot something, Rose usually reminded him, they could count the number of times on one hand when they both forgot something. Jake looked at his son, "I'm sorry I forgot, I've just been so busy, so you're going to be shadowing me?"

"Yeah," Shawn nodded, "Through everything."

Jake's hand went back to his coffee on the table, "And if we call your teacher, will she confirm this?"

"Yes, in fact I expect her to call in case she forgets," Shawn said pointing to the phone, "You want to call her now?"

Against her better judgment, Rose shook her head, "I believe you, if you were skipping school. I highly doubt that you'd be skipping school to go with your father."

"So when are we going?" Shawn looked to his father.

"A few minutes," Jake said and looked back to his wife, "Can you fax me the dossier when you get it?"

Rose stood up from the table and nodded, "Yeah, I'll be sure that you get it."

**OOOO**


	6. Chapter 5 – The Emperor of Broadcasting

**Chapter 5 – The Emperor of Broadcasting**

Setting his canteen of coffee on the roof of his car and setting his large stacks of folders and papers next to it, Jake opened the door and began to load the items into the car. He looked over to his son and smiled gently at the boy's raised eyebrows. Jake almost instantly knew what he was thinking, why the hell was he hauling around all of that work if he was the CEO and Chairman of the Board? Didn't he have underlings to do that, in fact he had several tens of thousands of people to do work that he didn't want to do, but Jake wasn't that kind of CEO to sit in his office, only pay attention to the very big designs and otherwise sit and collect his check. He took on all matters, from the concerns of Janitorial Staff to the color of the manual for the entry level employee, "I read everything that is sent to me, I read every letter and I respond to it, I obviously can't do that with over 41,000 people, but I try to do it."

"Don't you have other concerns to worry about?" Shawn asked, getting into the passenger seat of the Mercedes Benz, "I wouldn't be able to get it all done."

Jake slid his keys into the ignition and pressed the garage door opener on his dashboard and when the garage was open, he began to pull out, "You know what the firing rate and the resignation rate in INGB is? 5 Percent and 3 Percent, I've kept it a policy to getting to know my employees and personalizing my relationship with them in the best way I can. Before you were born, I took the heads of all divisions and departments of the entire company and ordered them to appoint a representative and the representatives would make annual reports to myself and the rest of the c-level. It was hard to build, but I did it and I get most of the employee's opinions and concerns, it's done."

"You sort through it all?" Shawn was literally was in awe of his father.

Jake nodded, "It was much easier when I was just the American Dragon, then I was just getting my ass kicked by your mother every other day, that was much easier then shifting through thousands of papers a day."

**OOOO**

"What's going to happen when I get into the office is the following," Jake said as he pulled into the parking garage, he was still getting used to the fact that he pretty much owned everything besides the sidewalks and the streets, "My secretary is going to hand me a fresh, steaming large cup of coffee and my itinerary of the day and when I go into my office, my CFO, COO, CMO and Head of Employee Relations will be in there to brief me on what the big issue of the day is. As you can probably guess, the big news of the day is the issue of the General Benefit and Retirement Plan for a certain segment for our domestic workforce, that's all employees whose salary is $100,000 or lower."

Shawn scribbled his notes down and looked back up to him, "What about the employees who make $100,000 or more?"

"We divide that section down into five more groups," Jake said, cursing inwardly when he tried to run though where the fuck they had designated his parking spot to be, "$100,000 to $250,000 earners have an accelerated retirement and life time benefit package, $250,000 to $500,000 earners have an even more accelerated package, $500,000 to $1,000,000 Earners have a standard insurance plan that covers just about everything and they'll have it for the rest of their life, and they are usually given a retirement package of 10 Percent of what they earned over their career each month, when for everyone else it's 50 Percent of what they earned. For the highest earners: $1,000,000 and over, all they have is lifetime insurance and a minimal retirement benefit, however we occasionally give retiring high level officers a going away present of a maximum of $5 Million Dollars. We're fair from the top down you see."

Shawn nodded, "What would you get in a severance package for example, and not just any high ranking officer, just you, personally you."

Smiling, when he found his parking spot, he put the car into park and stopped for a moment, "For me personally, I have full coverage of insurance for the rest of my life, when I leave I'll receive the maximum package of a $5,000,000 Dollar payout and I will get to keep all of the shares that I own in the company, however, I will take a nonassertive role which means that when I retire and keep my stock, I'll be the main shareholder but now Chairman."

He smiled at his father, "Something that you put into the agreement didn't you?"

"When I retire, I want nothing more to do with the company, when I retire for good, all I want to keep is the stock and the insurance. I have $20 Billion Dollars in stock invested in the company, I'm the largest singular share holder of a company on earth and I intend to stay that way," Jake said, grabbing his papers from the backseat, "In my will, I've dictated that it will be divided between my children and grandchildren all equally, however in the event that one of my children or grandchildren for that matter succeed me as CEO, 70 Percent of the shares will be given to that person so that they'll be CEO and Chairman, and the other thirty percent will be dictated between you kids and your kids."

"So I'm going to be rich," Shawn did a small little happy dance, "Provided that you want me?"

Jake smiled and opened his door and as he gathered his contents and set them on the roof of his car, he kept his eyes on Shawn, "Last night, you opened my eyes to it and I've made a mental note. However, your mother is adamant that you go to school and personally I'm not going to force you to do it, but it would make your mother happy and it would strengthen your position if I put you up for candidacy on the Board, I still need the Board to confirm you."

"So is this my confirmation?" Shawn grinned at him.

"I'll begin training you if you're up for it," Jake smiled back at him and locked the door before picking up his papers, "You'll start out as a paid intern to me directly – but if you accept this, I expect you to go to school Shawn. It's very important to your mother and your mother will kill me if I tell you that you didn't have to go to school. Oh, and I have to warn you that anything you hear today, you need to keep the sensitive details private, not in your report."

He was too blindsided to respond for a moment and then he smiled and nodded, "I'll go to college if you'll train me for the job, I've always wanted to run the family company – I've never been all that keen on college but-…"

Jake held his hand up, "Say no more, we'll talk about it later because I can guarantee you that your mother will want in on this conversation, but let's worry about it all later. I have to get up there for the meeting."

**OOOO**

"Good morning Mr. Long," Jake's Secretary told him as he and Shawn stepped off of the elevator. She held a steaming cup of coffee in her hand and a single paper in the other. When both of them arrived at her desk, Jake took both from her hands and began to scan through the paper. He seemed to sense the girl's confusion at the appearance of her son, but he smiled when she continued to inform him, "I've copied and filed the itinerary this is a Venti White Chocolate Mocha, with two shots of espresso and extra whipped cream as you like and I have to inform you that the Head of Employee Relations is not here, he had an appointment at his daughter's school, she beat someone up."

Jake looked up to the girl with a smirk and then looked back to the amused expression of his son because that was fucking hilarious to them both. The fact that the Head of Talent Relations was his son in-law and that girl was his daughter and thus his grandchild was amusing. Rose always said that their eldest grandchild always reminded her of herself, "Well then, we'll press on, and could you bring me some intern papers for him, this is my son by the way."

The young girl turned and smiled at Shawn, and in a moment of pure surreal silence when he watched his son blush in the face of his eighteen year old secretary, "I'm Shawn."

"Maureen," She smiled and nodded before turning and walking back to her desk.

Tapping his son on the shoulder, Jake smiled, he was highly amused. He'd never allow it, it would be inappropriate. Not that Maureen wasn't a smart and good girl. Those were the primary reason that he had hired the first year junior college student right out of her High School days. The girl had showed an aptitude for Economics throughout High School, he had read over shining recommendations from all of her teachers and Jake had given her the job then. At first, Maureen was his secretary as Chairman of the Board, but he had changed her job description yesterday in fact. He hadn't told her yet that he was doubling her salary from $40,000 Dollars a year to $80,000 and increasing her benefits across the board. Quite honestly, that would make her the best paid secretary in the company and arguably one of the best in the world, "She's a smart girl, and I have high expectations for her in the future."

"You certainly know to pick them Dad," Shawn said absently.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, I just want to hire exceptional people," Jake smiled as they reached his office and opened it, "Speaking of which, it's not going to happen, your mother would gut her before you got a chance."

**OOOO**

Jake took a sip of his coffee and leaned back in his chair as he looked at his head officer's reaction to the news that he had told them. As Trevor had gone down roads that he never expected to go down, Jake was too with this.

"You know that I've never accepted business this way," Maxwell said, contemplating what Jake had just told him, "But I suspect that we'll need to do this in order to get that money back."

He and the team of his top officers had been discussing this latest ploy to blackmail the Attorney General of the United States. He and his peers had been suspicious of the idea, but they gradually understood that there was a method to his madness. You need an ace in the hole and this was it. Shawn sat in a chair that was pulled up the side of his father's desk and watched what was going on intently and he knew more than ever that he wanted to be in that environment. He wanted to be sitting in his father's chair, "The Attorney General should be here in two hours, I placed a call to the President's re-election committee and to his superpac and told them both that if I didn't have the AG up here by noon, then I'd pull my donation from his campaign at the $50 Million from his superpac and they called the President immediately, I want you all here for the meeting, there should be some interesting things said."

**OOOO**

"That's right," said Trevor, leaning back in his chair at his stock readings, he needed to start pulling in some extra cash, "Liquate 150,000 Shares in Apple."

That was nearly half of all his holdings in that company, and the payoff would be enough for him to survive in the world that he lived in if suddenly he found himself lacking his fortune. Those 150,000 shares in Apple immediately gave him $87.3 Million Dollars to fall back on. He was anticipating his father's actions to reach him fairly soon and when that time came, he'd need a lot of cash to pay off the fines and to have a footing when he was free of trouble. Of course he'd be blackballed and probably looked at by the Government for the rest of his professional career, "I'll have it wired to the account that you set up this morning Mr. Long."

"Good," Trevor acknowledged and hung up on his stock broker.

He had done what Mr. Marcus wanted, he had managed to skim the difference off of the other clients and very soon he expected the long arm of the law to break through the door.

**OOOO**

**Authors Note:/ I'm considering doing away with this and to revamp it and to resubmit it later… tell me what you think? **


	7. Chapter 6 – I'll Destroy Him

**Chapter 6 – I'll Destroy Him**

Jake looked over and smiled at the sight of his son scribbling down notes, oh yes, Jake knew that he had found the person that he was going to groom to take over for him. He then looked down to the folder on his desk. It contained the entire package of all the information that Rose faxed him on the Attorney General. They made quite a team when they worked together. Jake made a mental note to team up with his wife more often, perhaps she should have been in this meeting – she was the very best at intimidation and he knew that he'd have to be at his very best right now.

"This had better be goddamned important," Attorney General Paul Erickson stormed into the office. Apparently he had gotten the hint and left his entourage outside in the lobby. Good, they wouldn't need to see this shit, "I have a meeting with the the Cabinet back in Washington in 3 Hours."

He looked up and was pleased to find the man's face was as red as his hair, then he followed his line of sight as they landed on his son, "What-…"

"He can be here, he's my son," Jake grinned and motioned for him to sit down, "Please Attorney General Erickson – have a seat."

The Attorney General scowled as he saw the thick folder on the desk, he had a bad omen about this. It was a general opinion that if you did anything to put yourself in disfavor with Jacob Long – you'd better be looking over your shoulder at every turn. After all the politicians, spiritual and religious leaders came the business men and Jacob topped that pack, making him one of the most powerful men in the world – far more powerful than him and he one of the chief legal officers of the United States, "Paul, you know that I like you right? I've always respected you and liked you."

"You helped me get my job at the treasury," Paul smiled weakly and shrugged, "You were at my daughter's wedding – I know that."

"And you know that I respect your position in the Government, right?" Jake questioned him, he was only getting started.

Paul nodded and Jake smiled and reached over a piece of paper that was sitting right next to his folder, he turned it and slid it to the Attorney General, "Well – I know that you want to clean house on Corporate Corruption and I salute you, I cannot stand it and I have a zero tolerance policy for it, but when you start targeting corrupt organizations that have a large amount of capital that belongs to this company, I have to insist that you give me enough time to get that capital out of that organization before you have at it, because I know that it would take years to get it all back."

He had already picked up the document and his eyes widened, no one was supposed to get this, this wasn't confidential, but this was an official letter to the US Attorney here in New York City to begin his investigation into Marcus and Associates. How Jake got his hands on it, Paul would never know, but he had it and he got the point of the meeting almost instantly, "This was an inter-departmental memo, how did you get this?"

"I have friends in high places," Jake answered with a smile, but then it dropped into a deep scowl, "The mistakes that my son made are coming back to haunt us, he invested the entire general plan for retirement and benefits for our domestic workforce in Marcus. I want you to back off for the time being until I can get that cash out of Marcus, and also, I want you to back off of my son when you raid Marcus, do we have a deal?"

Paul shook his head with incredulous laughter, "I don't think so."

"Well," Jake said, turning his gaze to his son, "What do you think of this development Shawn?"

Shawn shrugged and leaned back in his chair in a similar fashion as his father, which made the AG groan inwardly, there were two of them now for the world to deal with, "The Government has half the money and half the power, it looks to me as if they're trying to get the other half of both."

Jake smiled, "You hit the nail on the head."

"What do you want from me Long?" The Attorney General finally hissed.

"I was hoping that you'd do me this favor," Jake said, opening up the folder and withdrawing the first photograph, "But you've forced my hand and now I'm going to have to do something that I had doing and I like to call it blackmail. Now, what you're seeing in this photo, is the vehicle of one Paul Erickson, Mr. Erickson shortly before wrapping his car around a tree, struck someone walking across a sidewalk – he was dead drunk."

The Attorney General turned pale, "I-I h-had this expunged, I settled with the victim."

"Or how about this Army Incident Report," Jake side, pulling the document from folder, he hated doing all of this, he loved to do his business cleanly and he didn't want to threaten someone's lively hood and this material was livelihood killing – he'd be fired at once, "One Lieutenant Paul Erickson – returning from Vietnam, was found to have a key of pure powdered Heroine stuffed where the sun does not shine – that again was expunged, how did you manage that?"

He looked as if he was about to have a serious conniption, he looked as if he was about to pull his hair out by the roots in an effort to make sure that this was real. His past – which was heavily riddled with things that he wasn't too proud of and things that could get him fired. He had lived a wild life before he cleaned up and as he entered politics and public life, it was always a fear of his that his expunged offences and embarrassing issues would never come back to bite him, but they had now and he had to deal with it. There was no better way to keep shit silent then to just give in, no matter how much you wanted not to, so he'd play along, "What do you want exactly?"

"I want you to back off of Marcus and Associates until I can get the $20 Billion Dollars safely out of the company," Jake answered him sagely and crossed his hands together over the desk, "Also – I want to make a deal, when you finally do raid Marcus and Associates, you're going to find that my son Trevor is in the upper echelons of the company and he will be willing to testify for your case so long as the record is sealed and he is granted immunity."

Like he had a fucking choice but not to agree, but he was going to hold on to his dignity, "What do anticipate he'll be charged with?"

"Fraud," Jake said, getting up from the desk and moving the other side to sit on the corner, he folded his hands in his lap and looked down at the AG, "And if you intend on backing out of this deal – you'll have no idea who you'd be dealing with, and I'm not just talking about me, or my money, or my power, or my reputation, I'm talking about my life. My family and my company is my life, and I will _take down anyone_ who threatens either of them – I will take you down further then you thought you could ever go if you go after my company or any member of my family – do you understand Mr. Attorney General? Here it is simplified: I lose, you lose, and if I win your world keeps spinning."

He reached over and picked up folder once before tossing it in the Attorney General's lap, "Take it, I had a copy made of it, you agree to my terms, it's all destroyed and no one will ever know about it."

"Fine," The Attorney General said, picking the the folder and standing from the chair, "Mr. Long – you win."

Jake smiled and nodded, "Good, now get out."

**OOOOO-OOOOO-OOOOO**

"Do you think he'll do it?" Shawn asked, taking a sip of the orange juice that had been delivered to the office.

Jake chuckled and flipped through standard daily departmental reports, he honestly didn't know if the Attorney General was going to go back on his deal, but he did expect him to waiver on the second term, DJ's immunity deal. If that were the case, he'd release all of the contents of the folder to press and Paul Erickson would lose his job. He turned and grinned at his son, "I don't know – I can't expect him to ignore my warning, when I promise something, he knows me, I'll follow through with it, I always do. Same with my threats – that's a lesson direct from me to you, if you're going to promise something to someone or threaten someone, you follow through – don't just talk about it."

Watching his son write down that little bit of information, he smiled once more before turning back to his paperwork, without looking up from the paperwork he added, "He knows that if he doesn't, _I'll destroy him_."


	8. Chapter 7 – Concerning the Line

**Chapter 7 – Concerning the Line **

"There has been some question as to my capability of running this organization as I once did," Jake said sternly as he sat at the head of the table of his most senior officers, this was the not the Board of Directors, this was his C-Level Board. The Chief Executive Officer, himself, was the head of it and the Chief Financial Officer, Maxwell, co-chaired it, "I would like to remind everyone here that if it were not for me, this company would still be a local cable channel in San Francisco. My son was not capable of running this business and I had to do something to stop the real self-destruction."

They knew better then to question him, the whole Donald Wilson Incident had set a standard in the Company that if you crossed him, he'd take you out of the game. Crossing his fingers together, he leaned back in his chair and glanced at all of their faces, they were reading the report that was now reporting the Marcus and Associates Retirement Fund calamity, "I want to tell you something, that if I had been in control during this time, this idiotic mistake would never have happened. This is a prime example of why Trevor was removed and this is why I don't have any qualms with the move, at all."

"He was your son," Chief Legal Officer, Alexander Newman said slowly.

Jake narrowed his eyes, "He had his mother's business sense."

"Did you're wife run the largest gun company on the east coast?" Alexander questioned again and this time Jake had to turn to suppress the little smile that came over his face, and he noticed Shawn out of the corner do the same thing. Everyone bought the story being Rose's money beautifully.

Jake turned and narrowed a well-practiced glare at the man, "She was a figure head, if anything her Board ran the company. She just sat back and collected the check, as I have said for the thousandth in the past few days, Trevor as other talents, being a CEO of this company was not one of them."

"What are you planning to do about this?" Alexander questioned tightly.

Jake sighed and looked contemplative for a moment, the man was one of the best lawyers in the world and Jake needed to be careful what he told him. Alexander was idealistic and he wouldn't take well to the fact that he was blackmailing the Attorney General of the United States, "Let's just say that I've taken steps to ensure that we have a chance to get it all back."

"Care to fill us in?" Alexander raised an eyebrow.

Jake shook his head and smirked, "Chairman and CEO's prerogative."

"In other words, it would be best if we didn't tell you," Maxwell added.

Alex sighed and shook his head before scribbling down some notes, Jake made a note to watch out for him, just the look on his face told Jake that the man was going to be a large problem if he couldn't get that money back fast enough. Jake was silent for a moment before his phone buzzed on the table in front of him, scowling slightly, he picked it up and his eyes widened.

It was a text message from his secretary, it was his policy that if something important were to happen while he was in a meeting, that she was supposed to send a text message to him on his work phone. Evidently his sister had created quite a stir to his secretary that she had decided to send the message to him. Sighing, he began to place documents back into the tan folder that they had come out of and when he looked up to Maxwell, who was very confused by his actions, he smiled apologetically, "Something just… sprung up and I have to go and deal with it, Ladies and Gentleman I am sorry – Maxwell will take over and brief you on the rest of the agenda."

Getting up from the table, he secured the folder in his free hand and dialed in his secretary's number with his free hand. Holding it up to his ear, he stepped onto the elevator that was just outside the Boardroom and sighed irritably, "Maureen, what the hell does my sister want right now?"

"Family issue," Maureen sighed, "I tried to get it out of her, but-…"

He had already had a very good idea what Haley was coming to him about, but he wasn't about to blurt it out to the girl, instead in yawned and nodded his head, "Alright, tell her that I'll be up there in a minute."

Jake looked around and it finally hit him, he cursed and held the phone tighter to his ear, "And send a message to Maxwell, tell him to let Shawn sit through the rest of the meeting and when he's done to bring up back to my office okay? I just sort of left him in there without really thinking about it."

**O.O.O.O.O**

Jake slammed the door to his office behind him and stormed to his desk, ignoring his sister, who was sitting in the chair in front of the desk looking rather uncomfortable. Haley and Jake got along in that sort of, brother and sister way, you could easily make the assessment that they were not friends. They were merely friendly with each other for the sake of their mother and father and the rest of the family.

Haley didn't like the fact that Jake had given up his duties as the American Dragon to become a Rich Tycoon. She hadn't liked the fact that her brother seemed to have everything that she had wanted in life and had made himself into something that she had wanted. She most certainly didn't like the fact that she was forced into being the American Dragon because of something that he did. Haley couldn't stand her brother.

For Jake, the feeling was warmly reciprocated.

He didn't like the fact that Haley resented everything that he had become, for years she wanted to be the American Dragon, and for years she had expressed the desire. He hated the fact that overnight she seemed to hate her new position. Resenting him and his success, continuing her childhood role as little Ms. Perfect to their parents, oh yes, he had plenty of reasons to despise his sister as much as she despised him.

"Haley, I was in the middle of a very important meeting, the welfare of tens of thousands of people are at stake and as you could imagine this is far more important than some Hunter mugging a leprechaun," Jake spat dryly as he set the folder down on desk and dropped into his chair, "I can't tell you have busy I am – so I'll cut the chase what the hell do you want?"

She took a deep breath in, "It's time for the review."

"_Review_, what review?" He shook his head irritably.

Haley sighed and shook his head, "Oh my god, you forgot?"

"I don't have time for this," He closed his eyes and began to rub his temples, "If you don't tell me in ten seconds, I'll throw you out."

Haley snorted, "Oh please – I can take your security guards."

"No I mean, I'll throw you out," Jake said, motioning back to the window with his hand, "You know, I'll throw you the window, it'll test your Dragon Reflexes, ever wonder how long it'll take for you to transform before you're pancaked on the pavement, so what's it going to be, will you talk?"

The woman rolled her eyes and crossed her legs, "It's the Dragon Council's annual review, which means that they're going to decide if the Mantle of the American Dragon stays with our family and if you and I get to keep our powers, not to mention our children's powers as well. The flip side is, they might want to give it to one of our children, and we have to go both of us, and you have to bring Alex and Shawn along with you."

He looked at her blankly for at least two minutes and Haley thought that he might have just been fazing her out, but then he blinked and shook his head derisively, "I'm sorry – I don't give half a shit, I have nothing to do with that anymore, so I won't go, if you want to try and get Alex to go, that's fine, she's grown and she can do what she wants, but the prospect of Shawn becoming the American Dragon? No – over my cold, rotten dead body."

"As much as I'd like to see that-…" Haley began but Jake cut her off.

"What's the matter Haley, did you fall down a smack your little head on the pavement? I said no, I will not go to it and I will not subject my son to it, you can take Alex, but you're not taking Shawn and you are sure as hell not making me go," Jake scowled at her, and he did notice the smug look on her face, which made him growl, "What the hell are you not telling me?"

She smirked and cleared her throat before leaning forward, "This is a direct quote from the man who is making you come to this review and pardon me if I don't get the voice right: _Oo-ya! Tell your brother if he doesn't come here, I will not only put a curse on him for the humiliation he has dealt me – I'll tell my daughter and son who-stole-my daughter and he'll have to deal with them !_"

By that time, Jake had already buried his head in his hand, another relative that really had a sour opinion of him. If you thought Haley and Jake hated each other, the division ran much deeper with their Grandfather. Lao Shi, during the few times that Jake had seen him since he had come back from California, looked upon Jake with contempt. He didn't approve of Jake's decision and it was a betrayal in Lao Shi's opinion something that was far beyond forgiveness, "Fuck! FINE! We need to get Shawn and Alex and then we can go ahead and go to the Isle."

"I thought you might, ass wipe," Haley stood up from the chair.

"Bitch," Jake spat.

"Dick!" Haley looked back at him.

"Peasant," Jake looked satisfied as he walked past her and out the door.


	9. Chapter 8 – Rifts

**Chapter 8 – Rifts**

Jake had literally known his eldest daughter her entire life and in that time, he had grown to understand her personality and she loved to spend money, she always did. Generally, Rose and he didn't have an issue with it, they had money and they had plenty of it to spend, there had only been one time when Jake and Rose had to put a stop to it. When she was fifteen, she had gotten into the habit of chartering a limousine to school, every single day and after complaints from parents, they had put their foot down and put a stop to it. When she turned eighteen, she came into her nine figure trust fund and at that point, they couldn't do anything about it, but when he saw things like what he saw in front of him, it made him want to contact his lawyer and pull the five hundred million dollars that she had gotten as an eighteenth birthday present.

Alexandra had a daughter who she should have been taking care of at the moment, she had a meeting at her school, in which her husband was the parent present, her husband who had a job. Not to mention the newborn baby she had, but the baby could have been taken care of by the nanny for a little while. Regardless, he was very disappointed at the sight of his daughter trying on shoes in Macey's Department Store in the middle of the day. With his sister at his side, he stopped before his daughter, who was taking that time to try on a very expensive-looking pair of shoes and put his hands on his hips, "Is there some reason that you're standing there like you want to kill me Daddy?"

"Why aren't you at your daughters meeting at school? You realize that your husband has a job and a very important one, and you couldn't go to it because you had to buy shoes?" Jake raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

"Daddy, you don't live in my house, nor do you know what I do for my kids," Alex looked up to her father with an indignant scowl, "We take turns, I do one meeting, he does the next, and so on, this one is Zach's turn."

From beside him, Haley raised an eyebrow, "What about your baby, is all of that money filling your back fat head?"

Jake growled and turned to his sister, baring his teeth, and his expression alone said that if they were alone, he'd be ripping her a brand new asshole right now. However, Alex merely smiled in that way that reminded him of Rose. Of all of the children in her family, the only two that knew about the little spat between Jake and Haley were Trevor and Alexandra. Trevor tried to be polite to his Aunt, and she returned the gesture, but the situation was different with Alexandra. Alexandra hated the way Haley judged her lifestyle that her father had provided for her, and she hated the way that her aunt treated her mother – Haley had always been rather adamant in her reasoning.

She and Jake took up for each other when around Haley Long and they were almost always successful.

"It's been three months since I've had the baby," Alex shrugged and leaned back down to properly fit the shoe on her foot, "The part time Nanny that I hired is barely getting work – I think she deserved to get a check this week."

Jake sighed and shook his head, "I'm not here to debate the ethics of parenting with you darling, we don't have that much time, I'm double parked outside and we have to get to your great-grandfather's shop."

Alex raised an eyebrow as she pried the shoe off of her feet, "I don't want to know why, but I have a bad feeling about this, alright, let me just pay for these."

As Alex slipped her regular heels on and picked up the pair of new shoes, she stood up and hooked her purse up with her free hand, "Jesus, how much are those things?"

These were the moments that Alexandra's vindictiveness came out and it was usually spurred on by the sneer that the older woman had on her face, these were the moments when she really flaunted her money, "$1000 Dollars."

"That's a month's rent," Haley rubbed her eyes and shook her head.

Alexandra tossed her hair over her shoulder and laughed, "Well… I just spent on a pair of shoes with what you spend on your rent… guess that goes to show that my dad made some very good choices, where you did not."

"Your father was given everything," Haley hissed, her eyebrows narrowing down into a deeply hateful glare.

"No, I worked for everything I have, I gave Alex here pretty much everything I started out with $500 Million Dollars," Jake smirked from beside his daughter, their smirks actually matched, "You're just a bitter little peasant."

Haley put her hands on her hips in indignation, "You two are the reason people hate the rich."

"No," Jake shook his head as the trio began to walk to the checkout counter, "People resent success, you so obviously hate the fact that I became successful and you blew what little money that mom and dad gave you."

"You were always grandma's favorite," She insisted.

Jake couldn't help but snort and nod, "Well sure, that's because I gave a damn about her – and she gave me a half a billion dollars and her company, what did she give you exactly?"

Nothing, her grandmother had given her absolutely nothing and that was the source of this all for Haley – Jake had been going absolutely nowhere and he had gotten it all.

What did Haley get, a small portion of the small portion that her grandmother had given to her mother and that was all.

And he wondered why she was bitter?

For all of his successes and triumphs, her brother was quite an idiot.

* * *

><p>When the exited the department store, Jake was pleasantly surprised that his limousine hadn't been ticketed or towed. In fact it was now parked in one of the front parking spots of the store. Raising his sunglasses, he strode to the humming limousine and opened the door to the back. Holding it open for his daughter and sister, he began to take deep breaths in, he was not looking forward to seeing his grandfather.<p>

The last time they had seen each other was two years ago at Alexandra's Wedding – and other than that and other family events, they wouldn't be caught dead in a room with each other. Jake supposed that since this technically was a family event, it wasn't breaking the rhythm of things, but he'd still eat a bowl of leeches and bleed to death from the inside out then see him and the Dragon Council again, "What is this about exactly?"

Jake turned his head to his son, who was looking out the window with an air of nervousness, "You're Great-Grandfather is making me do this, if I had my way, then none of you would be involved with this and Haley could let her son have the mantle of the American Dragon, but he wants us there too."

"There is no way in hell that I'm doing it," Alexandra sighed irritably.

"Me neither," Shawn agreed with an adamant nod.

"In case your insipid father forgot to mention, I'm not pawning the American Dragon off on any of you, this is what Grandfather wants and he usually gets what he wants or we all suffer for it," Haley sighed and rubbed her forehead, before fastening her seatbelt, "Can we all just shut up about it and do it."

"As much as I hate to admit it your right," Jake sighed and looked out the window.

"Since when did you two start hating each other?" Shawn raised an eyebrow.

Alex snorted and looked down to her nail, "Since before_ I_ was born Shawn."

"What?" Shawn looked to his Aunt and Father as the car began to move.

"I'll explain it to you later son," Jake turned and smiled gently at the boy.

It would probably take a while and knowing his son, he would probably want Haley and himself to make up, which was going to happen as soon as they started selling parkas in hell. Folding his arms over his chest, he narrowed his eyes and continued to stare out the window at in particular. He was not looking forward to going to the Isle of Draco – he happened to know that the Dragon Council looked down upon the fact that he had forsaken his heritage to become a business man in the human world.

They looked down upon the fact that he had married the former Huntsgirl, not to mention, the former Huntsmistress and had contaminated his gene pool. Though it was quite clear that the Dragon Council looked down upon him for his choice in spouse, he wasn't sure if they felt the same way about his children. He had never been able to get a clear reading on it.

"So we're going to the Isle of Draco?" Alexandra raised an eyebrow.

"Yes dear," Jake nodded, "We are unfortunately."

* * *

><p>Slipping her sunglasses into her purse, Rose looked at the door in front of her and sighed, she hadn't heard from Trevor in a while and she was starting to get worried about it. That's why she had gone into the city today to visit him while Jake was at work today – she just wanted to know how he was doing. After knocking for the fifth time, Rose was starting to get impatient.<p>

Looking up to the door frame, she rolled her eyes and shook her head, she wanted to get into the condo, but if her son had become so predictable that he'd leave his key in a cliché place, she'd become even more disappointed.

She might not have completed his training when he was the Huntsboy, but she'd like to think that she'd taught him enough to hide his spare key in a place that any ordinary person with a brain would think to look. Sighing, she reached up to the door molding and ran her hand over it. When she reached the end, a key fell off of the door frame and fell to the floor in a clatter.

Reaching down, she picked it up and inserted the key into the lock. Pulling it out, she made sure to slip it into her pocket before opening the door. When she stepped into the condo, she was met by the rank stench of alcohol – and she knew immediately that her son had been drinking. Setting her purse down on the counter, her heels clicked against the hardwood floor as she walked into the living room. And with the position that she found her son on the couch, her sadness and her disappointment increased tenfold.

Trevor lay there, snoring with a half empty bottle of vodka laying on the carpet, with his outstretched hand, she could tell that he had fallen asleep with it in his hand. Sighing, she leaned down and picked the bottle up before setting it down on the table. Thinking of her next few options, she put a hand on her hip and with her free hand, reached down and slapped him across the face, "Wake up!"

Trevor's eyes blue eyes fluttered open, "Mom! W-What the hell are you-…"

"Shut up," Rose snapped, "Get cleaned up, we're going for a walk."


End file.
